New Years Speech of Ho Chi Minh

North Vietnam, New Years Speech of Ho Chi Minh, May 19th, 1968, Michel Nr. 532; A single stamp in the nominal of 12 xu and in perforation 11.0 was issued.

Here is the mint stamp.

Some printing errors do exist. Below is a mint pair on which the year “968 is missing entirely and on the right stamp the year “68” is missing. These errors were created in the reproduction process when the various color phases for the stamp were separated. The technician should have covered the area with “968” and “68” so that it would not be printed over with the red color. This was missed and as a result the white numbers are totally or partially missing.

Detailed scan of the affected area.

Very rare single franking of the 12xu value on a local letter (full contents preserved) sent from Hanoi in 1969. Various Hanoi machine cancels on the reverse. Most local letters were destroyed due to the multi-decadal war, the tropical climate or recycling due to raw material shortage.

Rare single franking of the stamp on an envelope sent to a fellow Vietnamese in Prague, Czechoslovakia in May of 1969.

Here is the same franking but this time to Helsinki, Finland. It is not clear if Finland fell under the definition of “Eastern” or fellow socialist countries but the 12xu domestic letter rate apparently applied to this rare destination instead of the 50xu rate that applied to “Western” countries.

Single franking of the 12 xu stamp used by a member of the Vietnamese military (Note the Hom Thu number in the sender line) and cancelled by a purple “VIET-NAM/YEN BAY cancel. The soldier had to use a “civilian” stamp as the military free franks that were given out to military personell for free were not valid for international mail. The letter was sent around 1968 from one brother to another who was probably studying in East Germany.

Rare multiple franking of the 12xu value paying the second weight level letter rate to Teplice , Czechoslovakia. The cover was sent by a member of the North Vietnamese Armed Forces. Teplice arrival cancel (July 7th, 1969) on front.

Air mail letter (full content preserved) sent from Hanoi to Budapest, Hungary in July of 1970 carrying both of the 40xu aircraft stamps one one 12 xu Ho Chi Minh stamp for an overall postage of 52 xu.

Rare registered express mail letter sent to Klewitz in April of 1969 featuring one of the 12 xu stamps plus im-perforated issues of the 1962 Flowers and Folk Dance series. Im-perfroated stamps on postally used cover are very rare. The overall franking amounted to 1.72 which was slightly in excess of the required postage of 1.60 Dong. Interesting Hannover-FRankfurt train transit cancel and Fulda arrival cancel on the reverse.

Registered letter sent from Nguyen Trai to Klewitz in May of 1982. The letter features the 90. HCM Birthday set in different color tones plus two of the 12 xu Communist Party stamps and the 1968 HCM Speech stamp for an overall postage of 10.90 Dong (including the red free frank for 5 Dong) . The 40 xu and 50 xu Water Flower tamps are actually intact. They are just cut off from the scan due to an over-lapping album page. Green Fulda custom cachet on front.