Souvenir Sheets

In addition to issuing trident overprints for everyday use, Ukrainian postal authorities used surplus 10 x 10 sheets of Soviet stamps and created souvenir Hetman or patriot sheets.

The first Hetman sheet was printed in Kyiv over a sheet of 1988 one-kopek stamps (Scott #5838). According to Val Zabijaka, a U.S. authority on Ukrainian stamps, these were originally printed without postal approval, so the post office officials confiscated the entire print run. "For a time, they did not know what to do with them." Says Zabijaka. "Then they asked the president of the philatelic group and me -- I was in Kyiv at the time -- what to do with all of these sheets. Both the president and I recommended that they sell these sheets to collectors. This was in late June 1992. Nothing was heard until December of that year, when these sheets were released to collectors with an official Kiev Post Office rubber stamp, marking them as a philatelic souvenir."

Above: Close-up of the center block of the first Hetman sheet

Right: philatelic souvenir backstamp