80. Death Anniversary of Karl Marx

North Vietnam, 80th Death Anniversary of Karl Marx, March 14th, 1963, Michel Nr. 251-252; Karl Marx was the intellectual center of communist philosophy and hence very important in the country. Two stamps in the nominals 3 xu and 12 xu were issued in perforation 11.0. This stamp, again, comes on horizontally and vertically ribbed paper, depending on how the paper was fed into the printing machine. Same prices. Here is the official Xunhasaba stamp bulletin that announced the issuance of the set.

Here is the mint set:

These stamps were not officially released imperforate, however, a small number of imperforate trial prints have come to market. Rare!

Here is a perforation error on a mint block of four of the 12xu stamp that shows a missing vertical in-between the stamps.

Mixed franking of the 3xu Karl Marx stamp together with stamps from the agricultural products, Hong Hoa Tham and useful plants sets paying an overall postage of 12xu on an international letter sent from Hanoi to Klewitz in Fulda, West Germany. 12 xu would have been sufficient for an air mail letter sent to East Germany as that was deemed to be socialist brother state. The correct tariff to West Germany was 50xu at the time but this was not recognized by the postal clerk as the addition of “RDA” (= Democratic Republic)/ East Germany). This was an often ruse used my people sending letters to Klewitz.

Mixed franking of the 3D Karl Marx stamp (2) plus stamps from the Fish and Animal sets paying an overall postage of 1.18D on an international air mail letter sent from Hanoi to France in November of 1963.

Here is a letter sent to Klewitz with the set and an overall franking of 15 xu. This was actually inadequate for a letter addressed to West Germany (50 xu tariff) but the sender duped the postal clerk int thinking it was intended for East Germany (= RDA) and hence was fine with the lower franking (required tariff to East Germany 12 xu).

Very rare letter (ex Klewitz) that features the souvenir sheet among other Vietnamese stamps (including the 3 xu Karl Marx stamp). Souvenir sheets on postally used covers are very rare. The editor has only seen one other postally used letter with this souvenir sheet. Overall postage applied of 1.13 Dong. The required postage to West Germany was 1.1 (50 xu base letter rate, 60 xu registration fee).

Interesting mixed currency franking mailed by Xunhasaba as a Specimen/Printed Matter in April of 1964. The letter carries the 500D Physical Education stamp that was devalued on March 1st, 1959 so was only worth 50xu at the time of mailing. The overall postage, which included the 20xu Phu Loi stamp, hence amounted to 73xu. England was still a rare destination in the early 1960’s.