In the Catalogue of Lithuanian Postal Markings by Vytautas Fugalevičius (Witold Fugalewitsch), in the section on VILNIUS 1920, there are unfilled spaces for two presumed but unconfirmed circular postmarks. They are marked there provisionally as “1” and “2a”.
One of the unfilled spaces can now be filled thanks to a discovery by Mr. Vytautas Jurkša (Dublin) of the yet unrecorded postmark “VILNIUS a”, where the index “a” is positioned at the bottom of the double ring. Some 40+ of these cancels [see some examples below] were found by Mr. Jurkša when he acquired a quantity of old Lithuanian stamps. The dates of “VILNIUS a” range from September 23 to October 5, 1920, and fit in well with the functioning of the Lithuanian post office in Vilnius prior to the town’s occupation by the Poles on October 9, 1920.
As this cancel appears only on high value stamps (1, 3, 5 auks. of the Fourth Berlin Issue), it is highly likely that the postmarker was used in the branch of internal accounting. This would also explain why this cancel has not come up on ordinary mail and was not used at the public counters. To add: with much less certainty it may also be suggested that for the two unfilled spaces in Fugalevičius’s Catalogue there is only one existing cancel, namely the recently discovered one. However, collectors would do well to re-check their relevant holdings.
