Toothless pair of stamps.
At the beginning of the First World War, many semi-postal charity stamps were issued, with the proceeds transferred to a relief fund for the wounded and the families of fallen soldiers.
The municipal public administration was, in pre-revolutionary Russia, the city executive body subordinate to the governor and composed of representatives of the city’s wealthiest estates. Among other duties, this body oversaw collections and donations from citizens, and it can be assumed that organizing aid for soldiers in the newly erupted world war was regarded as a display of patriotism and was considered at the highest level.
Helping one’s neighbor in Russia had always been quite popular: until the early 20th century the Empire had about 7,500 charitable organizations, and by 1902 as many as 11,040 were registered. So all kinds of charity events, concerts, and “collection-cup” drives in Russian cities of that time were not a rare occurrence. People chipped in for everything—relief for the starving, equipping public almshouses, support for war invalids and their family members, and so on.
But it was precisely with the outbreak first of the Russo-Japanese War and then the First World War that charity ceased to be a purely personal matter and became a “public duty.” Avoiding it was considered dreadful bad form, while demonstrating one’s participation, on the contrary, took on the character of a kind of competition. This gave rise to numerous charity badges, postcards, and other distinguishing tokens. At first they were needed so that collectors would not ask the same townspeople for a contribution twice. Later, however, they began to play a particularly important role: emphasizing the high civic engagement of their owner. These tokens were something people wanted not only to wear, but also to be able to show to their correspondents. That is how non-postal charity stamps came into being: the recipient of a letter, seeing them on the back of the envelope, could be assured of the sender’s strong civic conscience and patriotism.