How to Use

Here is some information that is intended to assist you in getting the best results from using the catalogue:

The 10 censor offices

The essential part of the website is the 10 pdf files, one for each of the Finnish censor offices, a list can be found on the catalog page along with active dates for the office.
The main rules of the Russian censorship during this period:

• Mail from Finland abroad was censored in Tornio from 15 August 1914 to 20 March 1917 and then in Helsinki until 28 January 1918.
• Incoming mail from abroad is censored in Helsinki.
• There are 10 censor offices where domestic censorship was carried out.
• Domestic mail was censored in the district of arrival – again as a rule, as there are quite a few exemptions. Domestic censorship began regularly in the first half of October and was put into effect on 13 October 1914, ending in March 1917.
• Censorship after 28 January 1918 was no longer Russian censorship in Finland.
• A large part of the mail between Finland and Russia was military mail, which was carefully examined, and for this the Viipuri censor office was crucial.

Several censor marks were without city names and similar stamps used in several offices; therefore, the above information is important to identify the active censor office.

Here illustrated four Censor Stamps without city names, all are found identical or almost identical in more censor offices.

Abbreviations used

CT           Censor tape
CS           Censor stamp
CM         Censor mark
EKU        Earliest known use
LKU        Latest known use
PM         Postmark
PO          Post office
CO          Censor office
WAX      Wax seal
SIG         Signature

Dates – Julian / Gregorian Calendar

Where Finland used the Gregorian calendar for dating, Russia used the Julian calendar The use of two calendars has caused some problems when updating EKU and LKU dates because there was a difference of 13 days. Russia started to use the Gregorian calendar on the 01 Mar. 1918. (The day before was 17 Feb. 1918.)
During the censorship period, for example, the date 15 Aug. 1914 in Finland, was 2 Aug. 1914 in Russia.

The censor marks can be found dated according to both calendars and the same mark in different periods. For some subjects, it can be very difficult to determine which calendar has been used. When a cover has both the arrival and departure postmarks from the censor office, the censor date will normally be the date of the departure postmark.

Dates that are written in red font is to indicate that the date is suspicious, or that it is wrong. A wrong date could be that the date registered is from after the office closed.

Dates of Use and Rating

This is an example of the data for a Censorstamp

Dates of Use:
Mark No. 1 12 Jun. 1915 to 22 Jul. 1916 1
Mark No. 2 16 Aug. 1915 to 24 Nov. 1915 1
Mark No. 3 09 Jun. 1915 to 15 Jun. 1916 1
Mark No. 4 16 Feb. 1915 to 25 Jun. 1915 4, R

First Collum: There are four subtypes of this Censor Stamp.
Second Collum: The date is the first / latest known date of use for this mark.
Last Collum: This is the rating of the mark.

Modified Rarity

Rarity Level
Quantity Known
Description
1
50 plus
very Common
2
31-50
Common
3
16-30
Fairly Common
4, R
6-15
Rare
5, RR
5 or less
Very Rare
Scale and assessment done by Jorma Keturi and Roger Quinby in 1999 and updated in 2012.

The Russian Language

To work with this area, you need to be familiar with the Russian Cyrillic alphabet to some extent. I have found “google translate” very useful, but probably other sites on the Internet can help similarly.

Type or “copy/paste” “translate.google.com/?hl=da&sl=ru&tl=da&op=translate” and then activate the keyboard. Now you can type Russian letters using your mouse on your screen. Pay attention to the big differences between lower and uppercase letters.

Handwritten Russian text can be extremely difficult to read.

The origin of this work

By making this website, I have continued to research and update what has been going on for many years. I started updating Roger Quinby’s 2017 CD shortly after the release. I began under his supervision and with advice from him and Jorma Keturi, I have been working on and off at this job ever since. Here I try to maneuver in the footsteps of some well-known and skilled philatelists.


Postisensuuri Suomessa 1914–1917 by Juhani Olamo, 1972. Helsinki
Die Postzensur in Finnland by Hans G. Moxter
Postisensuuri Soumessa 1914–1918, Osa 1 & Osa 2 by Teuvo Termonen and Jorma Keturi, 1997–1999
Cd-issue: Postal Censoring in Finland 1914–1918 by Roger P Quinby, 2017

The numbering used in all above mentioned and the files on this site is in general the same as those by Olamo.

Besides the above-mentioned several collectors have shared their ideas, showing their findings, and reported extreme date observations. Thank you for every one of them. Also, thank you to the Postal Museum at Tampere for their support. And to the users of this site, I hope you shall support the work too, by sharing your findings, observations, and ideas.

When you revisit the catalog files, please make sure that the date next to the download link is the same that you shall find in the lower right corner on the front page of the catalog, if not then try to reload the page. The eleven catalogue files have in total close to 500 pages. You can save these files on your device and open them from there. Please consider if you can use the file from your device without printing. If I update every file 3-4 times per year that shall be a huge pile of paper if you make a new print each time. Please save as many trees as possible.

There are Room for Improvement

Any alteration that I make is done in respect of the work done by the above-mentioned philatelists.  The language is not my native language, which also results in a grammatical error here and there, please bare over with me. There are still many hours of work in this job.
I am a philatelist who made a homepage about his hobby, not a web designer writing about postal censorship, and I do try to “keep-it-simple” when possible.
In some sections, I have had ideas on how to improve navigation, ideas that have not been affected in all files, such as the bookmarks in the Helsinki file. Over time I intend to make the files more uniform.

Your comments are welcome.

Jon Iversen
14 Feb. 2024