Hi David, This is a question I've wondered about for years; I've seen it on many books (none of which are from Russia or Poland). My suspicion was similar to your second one - that it may have been used by the army (maybe even prior to JCR, when they were still looking at sending books back to the country of origin). However, I have no proof for this hypothesis. I'd be very curious to hear if anyone has solid information about these stamps!
Michelle On Wed, Oct 18, 2023 at 3:38 AM David Fasman via Hasafran < hasafran@lists.osu.edu> wrote: > Hello All, I’ve been doing extensive provenance research recently, and > continue to run into books marked as, “Printed in Russia,” or, “Printed in > Poland,” though only a few of the hundreds of books we have contain that > stamp and actually come > > Hello All, > > > > I’ve been doing extensive provenance research recently, and continue to > run into books marked as, “Printed in Russia,” or, “Printed in Poland,” > though only a few of the hundreds of books we have contain that stamp and > actually come from either location. The attached picture is the TP of Sefer > Emunat Shmuel, published in Frankfurt am Main, 1682/1683. On the bottom of > the page is the stamp I am talking about. It is always in the same font, > though the color varies mostly between red and purple. > > > > To my knowledge, Frankfurt was never in Russia or Poland (or Latvia for > that matter). I am wondering, and have a few guesses as to why, but wanted > to see if any of y’all had a definitive answer. My main guess is that in > times of Russian and Polish censorship (late 18th century to early 20th > century) Jews may have stamped their own texts in order to avoid censorship > or worse. But thinking about it, I don’t know why the stamps would be in > English, when other censorship stamps from Poland and Russia were in their > native languages. My second guess is that these stamps were perhaps used > during Jewish Cultural Reconstruction as identifiers for location—though > clearly they didn’t do a great job as evidenced by our collection. > > > > Thank you in advance to anyone who knows about the origins of these stamps! > > > > David Fasman, MLIS > > Metadata Technician | Beck Archives at the University of Denver > > SRMA Membership Coordinator > > david.fas...@du.edu | 303.871.2977 > __ > Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual > author > and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries > (AJL) > ================================== > Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: > Hasafran@lists.osu.edu > To join Ha-Safran, update or change your subscription, etc. - click here: > https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran > Questions, problems, complaints, compliments send to: galro...@osu.edu > Ha-Safran Archives: > Current: > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran*40lists.osu.edu/maillist.html__;JQ!!KGKeukY!zXzlPpD1ie7lour_DAKZ3g-SKRc78qJfNQ6vzMf45N9qr7qS4lt2nGDLbcKTal0J-_oJxF7Fo1ns20419_eB$ > > Earlier Listserver: > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran*40lists.osu.edu/maillist.html__;JQ!!KGKeukY!zXzlPpD1ie7lour_DAKZ3g-SKRc78qJfNQ6vzMf45N9qr7qS4lt2nGDLbcKTal0J-_oJxF7Fo1ns20419_eB$ > > AJL HomePage > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.JewishLibraries.org__;!!KGKeukY!zXzlPpD1ie7lour_DAKZ3g-SKRc78qJfNQ6vzMf45N9qr7qS4lt2nGDLbcKTal0J-_oJxF7Fo1ns27mnu7a0$ > > -- > Hasafran mailing list > Hasafran@lists.osu.edu > https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran >
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