Country of production Soviet Russia Engraver A. I. Troitsky | Location of production Moscow Perforation none | |
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Date of production December 1922; 94 years ago (1922-12) – January 1923; 94 years ago (1923-01) Designer Ivan Shadr (sculpture)
A. G. Yakimchenko (ornamental frame) | ||
The 70r Red Army Soldier error or RSFSR 70r error of 1922 is one of the rarest postage stamps issued by the Soviet Russia between 1922 and 1923. Due to the double printing error, one cliché of the imperforate 25-stamp sheet has a 70-ruble value instead of the correct 100-ruble. Only four intact complete sheets are known.
Contents
Description
The sheets contain 25 imperforate 100-ruble orange stamps depicting the Red Army soldier that appeared in the RSFSR 1922 Workers and Soldiers definitive issue. The twelfth stamp in the sheet has the denomination of 70 rubles, unlike all the others that have the face value of 100 rubles.
Rarity
Only four complete sheets of 25 exist, including one in the state collection of the A.S. Popov Central Museum of Communications in Saint Petersburg, Russia. As promoted by the Museum, "the celebrated Red Army Soldier of the 1922–23 standard issue is a well known world class rarity."
These standout items are dubbed as "one of the greatest rarities in Russian philately". They represent "one of the treasures of Russian philately in general and certainly an important highlight of Russian Soviet Federative Republic collection."
On 20 February 2014, Cherrystone Auctions in New York City offered one complete Red Army Soldier sheet, among the items of the Igor Gorski specialised collection of Russia that contained many errors and unique varieties of the RSFSR period. It was sold for $126,500.