Type 3 of applying a surcharge (increasing the value 100-fold) with the overprint “Trident Ukraine” on a 1917 Russian Empire stamp.
After the coup d’etat of 29–30 April 1918 and the rise to power of Hetman P. Skoropadsky, the People’s Republic was abolished and Ukraine was proclaimed the Ukrainian State. The Ukrainian postal administration had substantial stocks of such stamps. In order to use them and to prevent identical stamps from other regions from entering circulation, which would have harmed the Ukrainian treasury, on 20 August 1918 the Hetmanate Ministry of Posts decided to overprint all available stocks of Russian stamps with the Ukrainian state emblem—the Trident of Saint Volodymyr.
It was impossible to do this centrally under civil war conditions. Therefore, the application of overprints was carried out by local authorities simultaneously in all postal districts, using available technical means, often by hand. This led to a wide variety of overprint types and graphic forms.
Research identified 52 main trident types, 68 variants, and 13 printing errors—133 principal varieties in total. The overprints were made in six postal districts: Kyiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Katerynoslav, Odesa, and Podillia.
Ukrainian provisional postage stamps began to be forged as early as late 1918 in Southern Ukraine, and later counterfeiters abroad produced fakes as well. They forged overprints and postal cancellations and even created non-existent denominations, so-called “fantasy” issues. The Union of Philatelists of Ukraine in Germany successfully detected these forgeries.
Money was losing value, and there arose a need to increase postal rates. A decree of the Council of People’s Commissars, signed by V. I. Lenin on 5 March 1920, provided that “postage stamps with denominations of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 15 and 20 kopecks shall have their value increased, for sale and for payment of correspondence, by 100 times.” However, the population held a significant number of stamps previously purchased at the old price, as well as stamps from the stocks of post offices looted during changes of power in the years of the civil war.
In the markets, rag-and-bone dealers sold stamps to the public in sheets for household needs (sealing windows, etc.), and we, then beginning collectors, used them for stickers. At that time they were of no philatelic interest.
In a telegram from the head of the provincial postal administration of Kharkiv Governorate dated 16 February 1920, addressed to the heads of postal-telegraph and postal institutions of Kharkiv Governorate, it was proposed to immediately stop selling to the public low-denomination postage stamps from one to 20 kopecks inclusive, and to keep the stamps themselves until further notice. Stamps held by the population were to be accepted without hindrance for the payment of correspondence.
A subsequent telegram ordered that all the specified low-denomination postage payment signs be sent to the Kharkiv post office for the application of a surcharge at the increased one-hundred-fold value, and that, when necessary, requests should be made to the post office to send stamps already bearing the surcharge. It further stated that stamps of 1, 5, 7, and 10 rubles were to be withdrawn from sale, and that payment for correspondence in cash was to be abolished once institutions had been supplied with postage payment signs.