In the 1860's Turkestan came under the control of the Russian
Empire as is reflected in this map, circa 1914
In Les Timbres de Fantaisie Georges Chapier notes that around 1921 a cinderella issue appeared for Turkestan with spelling and currency suggesting Russian origin (60). He records the following denominations and designs:
1 koh - yellow - head of a bearded man
2 koh - green - tribesman on a camel in the mountains
5 koh - violet - tribesman on a camel
25 koh - blue - city scene
50 koh - brown - herd of sheep
5 koh denomination
Chapier only documented imperforate varieties of this issue. Modern Russian catalogues indicate that the stamps exist in both perforated and imperforate varieties and that there are several overprints. They attribute these fantasy issues to printers in Paris or Italy and date them in 1923 or 1924 (Langenberg).
Bibliography
Chapier, Georges Les Timbres de Fantaisie avec Supplement. Lucerne: Emile Bertrand, n.d. Print.
Langenberg, Jan. "Unknown Stamps from Russia." Welcome to the Homepage of Jan Langenberg 7 Jan. 2009. Jan
Langenberg, Nederland. 21 Oct. 2010 http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/Langenberg/unknown.html.
"Turkestan" Wikipedia. 9 Sep. 2010. Wikimeida Foundation, Inc. Web. 21 Oct. 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkestan.
