SebPhilately's

Plastic bag to protect overweighted magazine

2010-12-11T02:26:00.000-08:00

Stamp Magazine, whose is now part of another compagny, was overloaded for the January 2011 issue: the magazine of course, a promotional paper, Stanley Gibbons seasonal bag of promotions, another one from another stamp dealer...

... and the plastic bag exploded during the trip.

Here is the yellow bag inside which the magazine and accessories were put by the French post operator.

No datestamp was marked... the magazine was not belated. No reinscribing of the address as it can be read on the initial bag.

On this topic of British magazine sending, I note that, for 2 issues, Gibbons Stamp Monthly arrived one to two later than before... Quelle honte!

Currency exchange in Londonian Monaco

2010-06-17T01:25:00.000-07:00

To see, at London 2010, I bought the ASCAT stamp issued by the Monaco Postage Stamp Issues Office.

About the topic of this stamp: William H. Gross, businessman, collector in its own pasttime and generous philanthrop. As soon as he achived a fantasy of having a complete collection, he soldit in the benefit of humanitarian organisations. Last year, the association of philatelic publishing houses, he was honored by their award.

About my curiosity: at the OETP stand, the 1.35 euro stamp was sold 1.35 pound sterling. At an exchange rate of 1 pound for 1.13 to 1.30 euro, a small benefit either for the cost of being at the fair or to avoid huger postage cost to their clients.

The stand was located in a square room that completed the great hall and the catwalks. You could find the second café, the Post Office counter, Stamp & Coin Mart, Monaco and Australia, and some non European dealers.

Philatelic magazines at stamp shows

2010-06-15T12:35:00.001-07:00

In Paris, a new "Stamps Planet" show is currently happening without - again - a stand for Timbres magazine. Some years ago, the redaction told the cost of the stand and moved stock was not worth the number of daily visitors during the whole week. Yet there are always present at the Paris Autumn Stamp Show.

Competitors L'Écho, whose website is always in labor, is certainly looking for new subscribers on a more commercial then philatelic stand... or being rattached to Yvert's, its owner.

The Fed Fse Assoc Philat (they signed La Poste's Charter, good call...) missed some letters in its name, but surely distribute its Philatélie française to youngersters and newbies. They will be automaticly subscribers when they participated to an Assoc Philats.

Over the Channel, at the Festival of Stamps 2010, from 8 to 15 May, the three main magazines were present, even on a little corner.

The most simple: Gibbons Stamp Monthly sold inside the Stanley Gibbons stand. Hugh Jefferies, editor- and salesman-in-chief was quite approachable every day all around the show.

Stamp & Coin Mart, Collectors Club of Great Britain's philatelic and numismatic publication, was well represented by a very polite and charming women (not in the Monaco fashion). She was not forcing the subscription, but proposed as a test the last three issues with a discount: 1 pound sterling the issue instead of 3.10.

A draw was proposed too. To win: a day at Bletchey Park, a spy place of World War Two in conjonction with the Britain Alone stamp issue.

A draw again with Stamp Magazine for an unused collection of George V stamps.

Certainly, as Timbres magazine, this company finds the financial cost important, but they were there! Not even a stand, but two lively-and-cheerfully-managed square meters with two chairs, a coffee table, some anniversary issues to be sold, an urn. Little yes, but right at the sole exit :)

I love the British commercial sense.

Eurovision topical collection expanding

2010-05-29T01:33:00.000-07:00

Tonight, in Norway, the final of the 55th Eurovision Song Contest will take place.

After Finland and its 2007 victory, not very appreciated by French television animators, Norway issued this 18 May a four stamp series about its winners,including the last one: Alexander Rybak.

(Posten.no)

Eurovision 2009 - Norvège winner (Norway) - Alexander Rybak
envoyé par haribo1912. - Clip, interview et concert.

What is the more laughable in the winner song video is the final comment by French presenter: "he may perhaps finish ahead of Patricia Kass" (the French singering proposed a requiem last year...).

Results of the 2010 London Philatelic Games

2010-05-24T05:03:00.000-07:00

I am back from a London week end and a profesional run away to Southern Italy.

Quickly after the doors closed, Saturday 15 May 2010, the palmares of the competitive exhibition of 2010 London stamp show were published. The Grand Prix was incarnated by a reproduction of Arnold Machin's depiction of the Queen's head, offered by the
Royal Philatelic Society London.

This Grand Prix was won by a British indigeneous with a study of the first line engraved stamps. More original would have been the choice of 19th century Korea or San Francisco as a postal hub in the same period.

French speaking philatelists would be please to know that Miss Livie-Laure Tillard (expert's daughter) won the youth prize with her presentation of the Marianne du Bicentenaire overprinted for use in Saint Pierre et Miquelon.

Soon: tales of a stay in London, a little line of the Italian one and too much more on the little stories of the always surprising φrench φlatelic pond (that can not be let alone for a dozen days...).

Marziano, French dealer and librarian

2010-05-02T04:59:00.000-07:00

Pascal Marziano is a French collector, expert, hunter, and consequently, dealer of modern stamps and oddities. He just opens his commercial website.

What could I find while I am not very interested in recent definitive freaks and three-zero philatelic orders?

A bookshop... where the note for each sold book will be kept online to help specialists and curious people know what are the tools of their passion.

A thank to one expert of France's new generation.

Ooooooooooooooooooh!

2010-04-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

Norvic Philatelics finally got a better depiction of the King George V Accession stamp to be issued just before the London Festival of Stamps' exhibition, from 8 to 15 May 2010.

Royal Mail via Norvic Philatelics.

A touch of Braille

2010-03-04T09:38:00.000-08:00

It is not because Gibbons Stamp Monthly's editor in chief did not appreciated the boisterous euro coin sale near his stand at MonacoPhil that he kept long grief against Monaco Stamp Issuing Office (OETP).

(OETP).

As soon as the March issue, here is a 2009 stamp of Monaco on the cover to announce Peter Jenning's topical article on the philatelic 200th anniversary of Louis Braille.

The OETP even bought a page of advertisment to announce his stand number at the Festival of Stamps, the international exhibition of London, from 8 to 16 May. And a good page: #6, after the content and before the news section.

And here you can see how the OETP Director changed: no more denuding muse to tease lascive mal...

(WNS)

...

My apologies: now the lady is almost completely undressed. But the goal is obviously artistic: it is on a stamp reproducing one of the great Monte-Carlo posters.

On the ad, that stamp is surrounded by eleven fake red British phone boxe stamps.

Everything put inside a square.

One message: number of the stamp, no name of the exhibition, and the OETP name and e-mail contacts.

The last campaign from the previous director or an attenuated version of the campaign by his successor?

Contemporary art and best wishes

2010-02-23T12:37:00.000-08:00

Frankly, who can think one's receiving best wishes with that stamp on the cover?

I know that I have a profound ununderstanding of contemporary,
but frankly...

Here, yes it is childish, very traditional,
but the message stamp clearly announces the message.

Ascending topical collection followed Abbot Pierre's death

2010-02-23T01:25:00.000-08:00

Abbot Pierre (1912-2007) was an important voice in France, having call the need to help the poorest and homeless people. From his death in 2007, he quickly became the subject of topical philately. A fact that certainly origins from his Foundation's need of donation and from La Poste's need to promote its spam-mail and stamp printing expertises.

Detail of the roofs and chimneys under which one is in the warm,
the main goal of Abbot Pierre's fight.
Notice the ondulating stamp separation,
proof that this stamp is autoadhesive and not the gummed version
(design from photograph and engraving: Claude Andréotto).

With the help of Google, I retrieved Dominique's Blog philatélie articles on Abbot Pierre's recent philatelic career.

21 June 2008 : the Foundation ordered MonTimbraMoi stamps, the French personalised stamps. The idea is known of firms, their public relation offices and of La Poste: stamp = human sending = I open the spam that I used to throw directly in the garbage = more receivers are going to answer.

7 October 2008 : same stamp, it seems, but the personalised stamp expert can see an IDtimbre, the personalised service aimed at firms and companies. Here in an offset version for 150000+ stamps. Spring test was efficient.

23 December 2008 : let's try to illustrate a stationery. The stamps are expensive though = back to the less sexy Destineo service markings + illustration à la stamp = same effect than before with some money saved.

17 June 2009 : certainly the Foundation and La Poste noticed that the philatelic pond was eagerly (in all the senses of that word) watching the experiments. Let's be compensationate with the frogs: creation of a IDtimbre collector. A minisheet of four of those personalised stamps to be sold to collectors and donators.

26 September 2009 : the Foundation being such a good client (and to be more profitable), let's make a personalised stamp in a unexpected rate (Destineo 35 grams) printed in only one step against two for the other personalisations (the legal mentions, then the picture ordered).

12 December 2009 : there must be a philatelist at the Foundation. Cinderellas on covers were created to distribute the pamphlet in streets, mail boxes and car windows.

Fondation Abbé Pierre used every stamp it can
to promote its goals
(thank you Laurence for your garbage).

26 January 2010 : no more order (or offering) of personalised stamps because the State and Phil@poste issued a φ-stamp - or "gummed commemorative" in old-philatelic language. But the client is King: autoadhesive being more useful for the Foundation's volunteers.

And there are the covers before 2008 with their illustrations and mottos, the stationery-for-answer, etc.

And as every collection must have its precursors, here, look for a 1994 Uruguay stamp.

Major philatelic association quits French Federation

2010-02-16T11:33:00.001-08:00

In the French philatelic pond, there is some turmoil whereas every one thought that the Great Charter of the Philately and the appearance of the golden cypher on the commemorative stamps were announcing great times of happiness.

The Union marcophile, one of French main topical associations (contrary to the numerous geographical ones), is going to resign the French Philatelic Associations Federation. The conflict began with a confidence problem on where the UM could be host. It finished in a mail consultation last January: 80% of the members who answered agreed with leaving.

It restarts, here and there, once again, the unending debate on the role of the Federation when La Poste controlled all main philatelic debate, especially when selling stamps is the topic.

Which consequences of UM leaving FFAP?

A thousand of members times some euros of federal stamps... the Federal treasurer will announced at the next Congress in June 2010 how many stamp souvenirs the federated associations must sell to compensate.

Little effects for the UM members individually: they are members of other associations and will have a federal stamp to participate in official exhibition. That seems to be the main motivation to keep in an association.

Maybe Marcophilex, UM annual exhibition, will be more difficult to organise without the financial and jury help of the Federation and its postal partners?

I stand very far of these association topics, but it seems to me that the relations between individual members, federated associations and the national federation are not conflictuous in the United Kingdom or the United States (and in the latter case, money use is very surveyed by members).

Another country, another more understood and useful role for the federation?

Everything must be sold: stamps, coins and director!

2010-02-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

Last 27 January, many intelligence collided on my desk: Gibbons Stamp Monthly's editor-in-chief losing his composure for one sentence (February 2010, page 94), French journalist Pierre Jullien amusing himself with an administrative note and Dominique proposing a numismatic link.

Common point: beside Guy-Michel Crozet, recently former Director of Monaco Office for Postage Stamps Issues (OETP), many philatelic operators and agents are angels of compassion with their prodigous philatelists.

Another common point: how you can create in Monaco one of the rare scene of violence since the Cunning by selling coins.

Because I did not want to run from train to train for only one day on the French Riviera and to recover from Autumnal leisure expenses, I renounced to discover MonacoPhil, Monaco's prestige exhibition on Saturday 5 December 2010.

Anyway, the event took place on the opening day: Friday 4, 10am: clients rioting. Quite seldom in French philately... yes, some quick paces, but just to avoid waiting for too long at Phil@poste's queue.

Here, the monegasque police was forced to intervene... Damned! And I believed its only role was to protect the five kilometers of borders from rusty cars and ill-fashioned tourists.

Many witnesses are available: Gibbons Stamp Monthly's editor-in-chief and coin collectors in Bulletin numismatique of the Comptoir général financier, a coin dealer.

Very early crowds in front of the Canton Room. Some coin collectors, many coin dealers and much more coin dealers' unofficial employees. Not many stamp collectors, it seems or that fact was not of merit for the coin witnesses. The romm was one of the three places of MonacoPhil: the one dedicated to stamp dealers and postal administrations.

Crowds because three thousands uncirculated Monaco euro coins boxes were going to be sold, one thousand per day during MonacoPhil for those who missed them in Spring and not wanting to wait the three thousands more in January 2010.

Rules were announced: you could buy no more than three boxes at 50 euros each (for 3.88 of face value... sigh). But, to do that, you must before have bought 80 euros worth of Monaco postage stamps (or 160 or 240).

Doors were opened and the drama began: the collective or massively speculative wave went through... submerge... may have destroyed... the room to reach OETP-stamps at the furthest corner possible. There, hostesses provided already-packed-80-euro-stamps bags... When these were paid and proofs of purchase given, the first rewent through... fight against... could have beaten... the belated rest of the mass. Their new goal: came back to the entrance where OETP-coin was selling the coin boxes.

Three top... in theory :)

Against a OETP-stamp proof of purchase... in theroy :))

Facing that, the second thousand of boxes were put on sale, perhaps the third one despite they were reserved for the two next days.

Things were not going better: innocent stamp or coin curious children and parents are fighting for their life and breath capability against speculative vampires (I know I should stop reading Twilight) and coin collectors in the terror of discovering they were not alone to have thought of...

The better story, the shorter ones: while mass hysteria was zeroing on OETP-stamps, police forces blocked the entrance. No one can enter, even the Prince. People trying to approach OETP-coin must show proofs of purchase, etc. Outside in the streets, transactions began: Hugh Jefferies of Gibbons testimonied of sums up to 650 euros in the same evening!

Members-readers of the Bulletin numismatique expressed their bad feelings against everyone (OETP, speculators, immigrant workers,...). Yeah, but when you accept to pay 13!!! times more than the face value for, sometimes, speculate yourself with it...

Mass buyers connected with their employees-for-a-day are happy: buy and sale at high prices in a few hours of hundreds of boxes that the Saturday and Sunday visitors would not see.

Certainly, satisfaction of OETP's chief-accountant: forced sale of thousands of euros of unused postage stamps and of thousands of euros in little money change, bearely sufficient to pay a drink in a Monaco café.

Problems rised quickly.

If he may prefer Polar exploration than the daily managing of the fatherly compagny, Prince Albert II (and its Manager of State) certainly had not appreciated this kind of advertissment.

Then, we all know that the vast majority of philatelic magazines rarely express grave negative opinions. It is so shocking to read Hugh Jefferies concluded its report by a suggestion dressed like an order. The Gibbons' booth was next to OETP-coin... "If other show organisers plan a similar promotion in order to bring extra visitors to a philatelic event - they do it away from the main part of the exhibition!" :(

French coin collectors long term solution: more boxes without stamps!

Short term solution: fire someone. As soon as 17 December, following a governmental deliberation on the 9th, replaced recent OETP Director Guy-Michel Crozet by Magali Martini. Certainly, he will keep a low profile somewhere in the Monaco government the time coin collectors forget things.

Shame there seems to be not video footage of these events :'(

From the bad survey to the successful sales

2010-02-14T11:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Tigger Year. A complex topic for Canada Post.

Nothing better under my nose (Amazon.fr).

In its winter catalog Collections, Canada Post released the results of the annual 2008 stamp survey. Three thousands and three hundreds answers who put the shame on the Chinese New Year issue (the Rat that year).

13.5% found the Rat stamps one the least beautiful (they were severe compared to the new ones) and 36.8% thought it was one of the least relevant to be issued by the Canadian postal company after the Francophony Summit...

Consequently, Canada Post stopped... ???... continued the issue with this year's Tiger.

Consequently, I was thinking that they were issuing those stamps by simple charity for Asian Canadians wanting to send their wish with a special stamp.

My bad: the Spring Collection announced that the Tiger Year corner blocks are already reaching the sold out.

Question 1: who answer the annual survey? Question 2: are they consistent the year after?

Finally, got some!

2010-02-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

A little less than one year and a half after their introduction, some British labels arrived to me thank to Julia Lee of Stamp Magazine.

5,5 per 2,5 centimeters of Royal grace... thank you, mister Machin.

With the code (and Brian Sinnott), I could retrieve where this stamp was bought.

High Street Post Office, Croydon (Google Street View).

009013 designated the three Wincor-Nixdorf machines of High Street Post Office branch in Croydon, southern London. Very logical because Stamp Magazine's editorial offices are located on the 233, five hundreds meters further on the same street.

These three machines have been in service since November 10th, 2009. For this stamp, machine #3 served for its first service provided to its 5662th client session.

Johnny Halliday personalised stamps: price down at post offices

2009-12-09T14:06:00.000-08:00

Not a fan of the French rocker (the very-thin-middle-of-the-road one...), I just discovered this morning he was hospitalised in California.

Few hours later, I went to my little post office and discovered that the personalised stamps at his effigy were price-downsized: now sold 10.90 euro the ten for 5.60 of face value. Initial price was at 14.90 euro...

The sheet of ten exists in two versions: one sold by La Poste's post office and mailmen and one sold 19.90 euro by a memorabilia store.

Relations between a postman and his datestamp in Morocco

2009-11-14T00:41:00.000-08:00

He wished to satisfy a French tourist who was sending a postcard inside an envelope for a friend's son (any reference to my situation is purely fortuitous :p). A Moroccan postman at Meknes-Medina office had some difficulties with the inkage of his datestamp.

Four trials on the A5 left side of the cover. Even the last one, bottom right, shows a beginning of wear in the N of Meknes: its oblical bar is shorter and starts low.

Thank you, postman, for your work.

First class definitives video of the United Kingdom

2009-11-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

Found than to Machin Mania, this video by Chris Phillips was posted last year on YouTube. Subject: the evolution of the simple letter rate in the United Kingdom from 1840 to 2008.

The first part permits to retrieve the British first types, whose surnames are so exotic when a French philatelist find them in a magazine article.

The second part became a color study of the Machin series: 40 years of use during the Western industrial crisis of the late 20th century.

Only a note on my part: about the calculation. Yes, 2008 rate = 86.5 times 1840 rate... but this multiplicator is no information if you do not know if you need 86.5 times salary work to send a letter today compared to the mid 19th.

Postal strike: how to detect it?

2009-11-07T09:07:00.000-08:00

In France these days, it smells like postal strike despite not a word in the press.

New mail sorting facilities (said bigger, speeder, cost-killer) are opening. Employees transferred from old centers (said smaller, slower, expensive) are afraid. The Senate is discussing the future of La Poste (privatisation among other things).

Some have an October feeling of slowliness that confirms Postcrossing.

Today, six of my postcards to both Chinas, Australia and the United States have been travelling for a period of twenty to thirty-five... and are still looking for the goal. Normally, three days to allied Western countries to ten days top to Taiwan, certainly the time needed to go round Big China.

Facing such striky problems, Royal Mail found a solution to play the 'a-strike-sir-no-problem' face in front of clients: no date on the cancelling mark like Ian Billings discovered this week.

Selling companies communicated by mail to reassure costumers. Amazon.co.uk promises no problem to send and deliver goods during the newt November strike, or perhaps one/two days for some specific United Kingdom package.

What would be the solutions?

Did the Royal Mail guarantee service for its big senders? Easy to do for collection, sorting and sending from a mail center to another... but for the final step to your mailbox, outside high density populated area?

To use private operators? Either at the cost of the sender not to lose clients. Or at the cost (already in red) of the Royal Mail not to lose the big clients in a context of aggressive competition.

8 November 2009 : today's Sunday Times reports the effervescent activities of small private operators.

A new pictorial cancel from New Caledonia

2009-11-07T00:17:00.000-08:00

I do not regret my Summer stamp order to New Caledonia Post and Telecommunications Office. With the last issue notices came my second type of pictorial cancellation from Nouméa.

A little error on the date block: it reads 28 January 2009 instead of 28 October 2009.

The Cocotiers Square appears again with the koisk and the Céleste Fountain. Saint Joseph's Cathedral stands above the town center.

Google Maps helps to locate all this. But it shows that, from the square, you can not see the front of the cathedral's towers. A good pictorial (when well-inked) though.

Apologies from a water polo afficionado

2009-10-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

Philately will come back here soon.

I was occupied at the LEN Trophy's first round which took place in Montpellier ; it is the secondary European water polo cup. The home club won the fourth and last qualifying place for the next stage.

No, I was not in the water. If I had tried that, I would finally have touched the three meter bottom of the Venus olympic-size pool in Antigone... for a long time.

Supporter emotions to ease down, pictures to archive and sleep before stamps again. Sleep because in the middle of all this, I forgot the damned Winter time change and to be up at five sharp is quiet early, even to watch water polo.

To help you wait, you can read this topical humorous note I forgot to translate from my blog in French:

Believing the French stamp catalog website Phil-Ouest search engine, there is no postage stamp of France about water polo despite a gold medal at the 1924 Olympic Games.

And because the team did not qualify, not even the hope of a stamped medal of the exquisite Helsinki's Games series designed by André Jacquemin. The genesis of this late issuedseries was recently told in Timbres magazine in September 2008.

Here you are when you win before the postal printing plant has not yet been launched at full ramming speed to a wall.

Let's picture it again with the shooter on the left, I am sure that you can do a five to ten stamp minisheet with this picture: shooter, arm up defensor, retropedaling goalkeeper, standing coach, worrying president, substitute, the offensive countdown clock, the advert baloons, spectators, referee in white, federal delegate, ball, etc. And with my pool-o-phobic camera, not a change that someone recognizes a living person.
(licence : Creative Commons by-nc-nd, taken during the fifth place match, Cup of France).

...

Wwwwwwwww-hat!!!

They dit it alREADY!!!

Finnish Braille, a definitive commodity

2009-10-20T23:56:00.000-07:00

Already presented here, a good habit of Posti: to issue each year a stamp of Finland which denomination is printed in Braille to help blind people.

Here is the 22 January 2009 one with a morning landscape of Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park, in Northern Finland.

Always more useful than a commemorative issue in Braille once every decade.

Why Guernsey pictorial cancellations are rare

2009-10-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

Guernsey Post is forty years old^[1] (thirty-nine when I received this Postcrossing card), but it can commit errors:

There are pictorial cancellations in Guernsey, but very difficult to discern. Empty inker? Air mail label too thick?

[1] : read October 2009 Gibbons Stamp Monthly's four articles on Guernsey postal, marcophilic and philatelic history.

France like you smell it

2009-10-11T03:26:00.000-07:00

In the Summer 2008 issue of Timbres magazine, Socrate, nickmame of a free spirited philatelist, proposed to import in France the Japan's regional issue. One or two stamps per year and per regions, on a purely regional topic, regionally chosen with work from regional artists.

Alas! The French philatelic service, Φl@poste, heard its socratism and three serious and tragic events happened. First, a φl@telic diarrhea of two hundreds and sixty-four photographed copy-paste on adhesive paper. Then, the twenty-three cent cost per already-personalised stamps. Finally, believing some testimonies on a frp forum, the reprint of some of these souvenirs because they were popular enough...

Puig, excellent cheesemaker in Montpellier,
23 Saint-Guilhem Street, in the historical towncenter.
And, in need of bread, you can go to Lo Monaco,
8 Jean-Jacques-Rousseau Street.

To relay Socrate in the idea department and Φl@poste in the search of pigeons, I propose a series entitled France like you smell it: one stamp per cheese of our regions. According to known men's quotations, there would two to three hundreds stamps, enough for a new diarrhea like in Spring 2009.

And if Φl@boulazac, my new way of calling Φl@poste's printing plant, would want to use again the chocalate-smelling micro-bubble technology improved with the ageing of the odor, the issue title would become a commercial promise.

France 2011 program (first part only... oh my)

2009-10-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

The first part of France's philatelic program for 2011 was published on 29 September 2009 by the Ministry of Industry.

My problem is not about the topics ; let see what the artist will do with them.

It is: it is only the first part, when many postal operators would be happy with that: twenty-one issues plus ten message stamps, nicknamed writing stamps at one moment, semi-permanent stamps on the other.

I see that the Minister of the Industry did not use the big-hearted names described into the magnificent Charter of the Φlatélie... Has none of the signatories sent him one copy?

Or, if his services did receive it, it seems they decided to do it simple and efficient: like before.

Back to optimism and futility: be philatelist

2009-10-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

And hop, to be light again and let's sail to Bermuda... (stereotyped music of the Pacific isles) Isles with an encharming name in the Northern Atlantic when Autumn is planting tent in the Southern of France... And one of the British overseas tax havens.

In March 2009, the Bermuda Monetary Authority introduced new banknotes for the four hundreds years of the long last installation of Britishmen and slaves on the site. Yes, a sort of definitive note series with a commemorative first day of issue.

How to use these notes has got many likenesses with all the overwhelming issuance policy of many philatelic services and agencies in the world. To make it simple, one dollar of Bermuda plus cost is worth around one dollar of the United States of America, near-by provider of green notes which usuaully migrate with businessmen, their lawyers, their bankers or people on vacation. The United States dollar is accepted everywhere, but the problem begins if the change is given to you in the local currency. The latter can be used or changed only in the archipelago. Either you spend them or you make a changing office happy.

The Nature and Machin side of a new twenty dollar note
(blog Banknote News, 28 March 2009).

Why am I, right now, interesting in these far away notes?

No, not because of the frog (one of the human-brought-them species). You are confusing with Eric's blog.

Look weel... yes, there!

Below the ocean, the islands-profile hologram, the frog!!

Left bottom!!!

YESSSSSSSSSS: the magnificent effigy of Her Majesty by Arnold Machin.

The new set of banknote is more modern in design and the queen's portrait was disminished to the cameo size it has on the commemorative stamps of the United Kingdom. And the Machin effigy can do that very well without hurting the Monarchy.

The Architecture without Machin side
(blog Banknote News, 28 mars 2009).

On the other side, a little more of fauna and flora, and an historical architectural element of the territory.

Thanks to the Banknote News blog that illustrated with specimen images when the official issuer shows nothing.

Be pessimistic

2009-10-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

On the second thought, even British collectors are old disgusting men for the Monaco Postage Stamp Issue Office. In the all new November 2009 Stamp Magazine, the famous model loses her stamps to attract Britishmen to the prestigious exhibition Monacophil, on 4 to 6 December 2009. Yet, on the Côte d'Azur, at worst, she will end clothed with a swimming suit.

In Metropolitain France, the Charter of the Φlately let the French Φlatelic service do whatever he wants. Now, it is the French Southern and Antarctic Territories' Service of Posts and Telecommunications (SPT of the TAAF) that plays the same game. And hop, a highly speculative product non perforated is given to five hundreds happy few (too chics to queue at the next Paris Autumn Stampshow?). And hip, the happy few is happy of the pretty gift, but sad to see the SPT is going back to unperforated bad demons of its Metropolitan older brother. The happy few asks : "So, scandal or no scandal to come?" Then, hypocrites or no hypocrites, the five hundreds future speculators?

Finally, in today's mail, the trimestrial bulletin of the actions of Doctors Without Borders. Little summaries on how received gifts are used to help people around the world, including the nine millions United States dollars from collector (who do not need unperforate pseudo-issues...) Bill Gross. In March 2009, inhabitants of Mayotte chose to make it a French département. The French philatelic pond wondered if it can still issue postage stamps after the process being complete. There may be more urgent tasks: Doctors Without Borders are operating free clinics in the nowadays slums of the future One Hundred and One Département France.

October in France: Hell! Three more months!

2009-10-02T23:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the rudeness, but it is what I thought when I began to prepare this article about France's issue in October 2009... the first time since last January when I decided to follow a whole year.

I flush at once the dolls on 19 October. Advantage: some of the minoritary first day of sales outside Paris. The topic is of no interest to my personal self. It merits a little note though: thank to the people in charge that make engraver Elsa Catelin perform intaglio printing on offset picturing. The result is far from Martin Mörck's sport cars for Danmark, but Phil@poste is trying something...

I go past Hansi's artwork, pseudonym of Jean-Jacques Walz, an Alsatian illustrator known for his pro-French positions at a time when Alsace was a German Empire territory between 1870 and 1918. It will surely please Alsatians, especially with the chosen traditional costume topic. Perhaps something more "Résistant" would have better put its artwork in context, but I will not here replace art politic history specialists.

Resistant during the 1870 War (in preparation of the one hundred and thiry years anniversary of that war and its Third Republican consequences?), Juliette Dodu.

A master subject to attract collector's money: a French resistant to a German invasion, a heroin of the Posts and Telegraphs administration - PTT nostalgia... when a French newsweekly is putting a mediatic final to a popular referendum against the privatisation of La Poste.

Pierre Jullien already wrote what he is thinking of this stamp and I largely second his motion: why the Irish colour in the background? And you really need a pre-mobile phone historic culture to understand that Juliette spied on German telegraphic messages.

Plus an historiographic problem (even if the French Wikipedia's references came from a television-linked author: for Guy Breton, the decorated resistant might not have resist at all. He said it doesn't exist archives of our verdict to the death penalty, nor of the Prussian hereditary Prince, later Emperor Friedrich III's grace.

All this (design and historic): the fault of the designer Claude Perchat and the engraver Marie-Noëlle Goffin? Of Phil@poste pleased to have an easy subject to sell to old collectors? Of the Minister in charge of the philatelic program and of the polician from La Réunion or the Loiret who lobbied for the stamp?

Let be the 12 October stamp for the centenary of the monument put in front the Universal Postal Union's headquarters in Bern. A France-Switzerland joint issue honoring its sculptor: René de Saint-Marceaux (1845-1915).

There, my opinion diverged greatly from Pierre Jullien's point of view.

A topic that goes outside the habits despite the UPU for all season topical diarrhea. That may be because of the Swiss touch (thanks to Silvia Brüllhardt): the artwork and the artist are both represented on the stamp, very rare on French stamps.

Secondly, with September stamp about Eugène Vaillé - an important unknown person before the efficient noisy lobby done by La Poste's Museum Friends Society, philatelists have finally "their stamps", about their passion. Even if the Vaillé stamp design is closer to the desperating classicism of a Juliette Dodu.

Finally, it is not because nineteenth century "official" artists were quickly forgotten by the masses that they are to be forgotten for all. Personally, I would like that some contemporary artists avoid posterity.

Enfin, ce n'est pas parce que les artistes « officiels » sont vite oubliés par la masse qu'il faut les oublier complètement. Personnellement, je souhaiterais bien que certains artistes contemporains évitent la postérité. Outre-noir...

And for that stamp, Phil@poste goes with the violins again to be sure the collectors came to buy: one intaglio printed portrait one! There are not resting, Boulazac's in house engravers.

Yet, on this joint issue, it is the Swiss Post that is considering its collector's money:

Screen capture of the news page in French, Swiss Post's website (initial address, 2 October 2009).

The Swiss gemini will a service stamp, only usable on mail posted at the Uuniversal Postal Union headquarters...

So, only one stamp is of my interest and will relay the Avignon one on my cards to Switzerland and European Union postcrossers.

Already, on a commercial page for the Paris Autumn Stampshow, a catastroph is announced for November: an infamous two stamp minisheet with two different rates, with the vice to choose an expensive and less common one...

Are French collectors old disgusting persons?

2009-10-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

It is the question I am asking myself when I read commercial pages in philatelic magazines, and not when I see French philatelic service's director Eslinger putting a Greek sign to warn parents of stamps issued for a population that may, during a symposium, propose to their innocent collecting children unimaginable « têtes-bêches à gros cachet 69. »

Today, it is the Monaco Postage Stamp Issue Office (OETP) that has a very stereotyped communication.

You certainly recall that, since Spring 2009, the Prince's Office has been using the back charms of a model walking to promote the Mediterranean principality's commemorative stamps. One day she is schocking by losing stamped parts of her dress... The other she wears with style a one-stamp dress. Like all good model, she is travelling a lot: from Monte Carlo to London through Paris.

But, when comparing October 2009 magazines from both sides of the Channel...

In the United Kingdom, in Stamp Magazine, she is proudly wearing a Big Ben stamp dress in the eve of the 2010 Festival of Stamp, marked by a great exhibition next May. The British man knows how to appreciate a beautiful woman, and a dress too.

In France, in Timbres magazine, she is again indecent under the graphic tools of a sex addicted illustrator. The message: "Meet me in Paris" at the Autum Stamp Show in November... to see the bottom or the upper ungummed? Makes me believe that only the hope of fresh female bodies can attract Frog collectors.

Stridulation in the garrigue

2009-09-27T04:38:00.000-07:00

Autumn eventullay began last Tuesday, the 22nd September. But, sunny Summer kept above Montpellier. Cutting through the garrigue by bike is always wonderful.

Talking of garrigue, a middle school in Montpellier is named after this vegetal form you can find around the place - after you go past houses, lower buildings, higher towers and bars of low-rent appartments. Because it is in the middle of the Heights of Massane, one part of La Paillade's popular area. However I advice you to do a morning visit to take pleasure in the panoramas on the surroundings garrigues in the directions of Grabels and Juvignac (and to see the effects of urban nibbling.

The meter is not pagnolesque at all. Very efficient to know how to keep in touch with the shcool though. What shall we do? Go back to Cannes or encourage the creation of logotypes and personalised stamps by students? La Poste would be happy, but not the school's treasurer.

Nouméa still got pictorial cancellation

2009-09-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

Flammes, French late 20th century pictorial cancellations, are still resisting in the French Republic, but like the times when the General was in London, it is overseas that you have to search for.

From Nouméa, in post paid ("PP" in the middle date block while the upper "P[oste].P[rincipale]" is for "Main Post Office"), this flamme appears on the enveloppes that the philatelic service of the Post and Telecommunications Office of New Caledonia uses to send the new stamp issue flyers.

It is illustrated by Saint-Joseph Cathedral and, it seems to me, the Coconut Palm Kiosk (kiosque des cocotiers).

A philatelic service that I recommend to you.

Philatelicly contraceptive humour

2009-09-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

No, this is not a campaign from French philatelic service's Director Eslinger promoting her Greek condom to avoid the multiplication of demanding collectors.

The French National Institute of Prevention and Education for the Health (INPES) launches a website on contraception with small humorous cartoons, and posters and clips on unexpected situations.

"No, darling. That, it's my patch" (credits, INPES website).

On the topic of arranging one's postage stamp collection, an introduction to the contraceptive patch for women, the skin equivalent of the pill.

With all that Phil@poste can print on autoadhesive stamps of France, the error becomes so easy to make :p

Electoral duty on patriotic cancellation

2009-09-25T12:08:00.001-07:00

In Germany, pictorial cancellations promote the political life of the country.

This postmark announces the federal legislative elections in Germany on Sunday 27 Septembre 2009 („Bundestagswahl 27.09.09“). The sentence under the ticked round may tell "Each vote counts" as the verb zählen means to count. This cancellation was applied in mail center number 54, sorting mail of the Western part of Rhineland-Palatinate Land.

In Germany, voters tick their vote on a long ballot paper on which parties are listed on two columns (example). Each citizen has got two votes: one for a local member of parliament elected and one for a correcting proportional list suffrage. In conclusion, each party can be represented while electors can have a known parlementary figure to turn to.

When could this healthy mission of public service be done in France by La Poste and its competitors?

British online postage

2009-09-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

Received yesterday, 23 September 2009, this postage on a Postcrossing card sent in Wales.

The online stamp by Royal Mail (with an airmail-and-commercial label).

We are far away from the illustrative Montimbrenligne online service of La Poste in France. Utility first and for all, even if it lacks the royal effigy, even a crown. The printing adds what you need for an airmail service with a message promoting the online service: "This postage was printed using / www.royalmail.com/onlinepostage ».

A disconnected adress since you are directed on Royal Mail's front page with three entrances: personal clients, businesses or corporations. The online postage is easy to find though.

And quick and efficient: where in three choices and weight. Then, precision of destination if necessary. Her Majesty's Forces are one of the choices ; respect of military duty is not vain in Anglo-Saxon countries. And hop, all the postage solutions are here from the more simple (0.56 pounds like here, around 0.61 euro/0.99 dollar) to the registered insured packets.

Personal touch: I would have preferred a Machin :'(

Modern art or postal art?

2009-09-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

After Finland, there is an other European country whose historical postal operator has proven philatelic inventivity to reach a point it became an eventual editorial line: the Netherlands and its TNT Post.

From souvenirs of the 1990s Timbroloisirs, it came back the two cows marching to the following stamp ad libidum. Definitive values as simple as they were artistically researched.

Here, my eye got art from the postal label se-tenant:
If there were not twenty seven years between the study for horizon by Sigurdur Gudmudsson and the 2006 stamp, man can believe the picture was taken for the stamp on purpose, at a few inclining degrees short. The Icelandic artist has many artwork exhibited on Netherlandese public spaces.

The four stamps of the series, European rate (TNT Post website's archives).

A blue postal element that permit, in my opinion, to change the category of this little 2.6 time 2 centimeter stamp: from a copy/paste picture often soulless to an artistic stamp.

The kiwi, a new philatelic currency

2009-09-22T23:36:00.001-07:00

On 7 September 2009, New Zealand Post revolutionarised its definitive stamps and its nationwide postage rate system, creating by communication a new philatelic currency: the kiwi...

... à la belge!

The ten first KiwiStamps (stuff.co.nz news site).

Sold in booklets of ten, sheets of fifty or rolls of one hundred, these typical pictures of the life in New Zealand bear the name of the country, New Zealand Post's silver fern and the new KiwiStamp calling.

Already, some issues praised the kiwi's particularities, from the fruit to the bird passing through the European descent of the inhabitants themselves.

Known by many countries, the non denominated stamp is enough for a basic letter. One for the standard service, that is 0.50 New Zealand dollar (around 0.24 euro or 0.36 dollar of the United states). Two for a speeder service, that is 1 dollar (around 0.48 euro or 0.72 dollar). This system extended to many dimensions and weights like in Belgium, in a more simple way.

The new WikiStamp rate system (New Zealand Post website).

To each cover format, the size, thickness or weight limites so that you can conclude the postage expressed in a number of KiwiStamps.

Like in Belgium, a client can wonder where the trap is: would not the larger or heavier mail be exponantially more expensive at each point's value increase?

In the New Zealand case, I see that the first weigh level is quite large: up to five hundred grams for a simple letter whose speed delivery is quite reasonable in price. Even up to one kilogram in case of unregular shapes.

To the client to choose: to mail many things inside a reduced size that can be economic in hand and machine sorting and energy consumption. Or post less but in any wished form but more expensive at the first grams.

Czech vintage

2009-09-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

Pretty stamp and label on grape, issued in January 2008, by J. a L. Knotkovi... but I can not read enough czech language to discover more on this or these artists.

The World Association for the Development of Philately Numbering System adds an artistic title, as the engraving is: "still life of wine".

Déjà vu?

2009-09-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

Here is a card that my family sent for my birthday during the Summer:

Why this sense of déjà vu?

Finland personalised stamp and French postal cautiousness?

2009-09-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

Finnish people, Posti and Postcrossing eventually constitute an innovating team. Last morning surprise: yesterday Saturday 19 with the arrival of a card whose message was dated Wednesday 16 September 2009.

The first class stamp (0.80 euro usable depending weight for the interior and the European rates) is thin and plastified. It seems autoadhesive, like most of the stamps of Finland.

The 3.2 × 2.4 centimeter illustration is very small inside the 4,2 × 3,9 stamp from tooth to tooth. And it has got a date and an hour of the photograph being taken: "22/08/2009 15:23".

All appearances of a personalised stamp. Google Images helps find two another examples: one like this train stamp and another on a blog in March 2009 with an elliptical perforation à la Royal Mail. This second model can be seen on the official site of the Omakuva service, a Finnish word for self portrait. To know more would request better Finnish translation or to register the webshop.

A proof of validity can be distinguished under day light: the stamp surface has got many rounded points that a sorting machine can see.

Now, why did I speak of "French postal cautiousness"? There are two things missing on this postcard. Yet, it arrived in three days. By experience that quite efficient and usual between Finland and France.

No cancellation in Finland. Already seen and always in debate: simple error? Economy of ink? Respect of the illustration? A Finnish reader suggested his hypothesis: the place of posting can play, either a post office counter or a mail box.

No French salmon barcodes printed in a French mail center to direct the card to final destination. A machine at the arrival center may not have appreciated the personalised stamp and the lack of cancellation. The human checking let it through: known case? Benefit of the doubt? [plus the bad social context inside La Poste's mail centers] Certainly, put by hand in the bag to Montpellier. May this story happen again in one of Montpellier centers where the card finished by hand in the good box then the good postman race?

Too much questions from a so railway-cute holiday souvenir.

In Belgium, store your stamps

2009-09-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

Belgium postal service's rates are becoming more and more difficult if you are an e-mail user.

Good point first, there is only the prioritary rate: 0.59 euro nationwide, 0.90 Europe. Economic rate is only for clients using meter machines that help La Poste/De Post to spare cancel ink. The postal direction communicated that all mail were delivered the day after posting. To accept that your letter was non prioritary was senseless.

However, since 2007, you have to master the point system: Belgian points, European points, that you can collect depending on weight.

Starting next 1st January 2010, it is how you can get the points... sorry the postage stamps, that will change. At the postal desk, if you buy less than ten nationwide stamps or five European rate stamps, you will pay ten cents more per stamp!

Belgian consumers are encouraged to buy booklets. To avoid the queuing time cost to their fellow consumers and to limit the financial cost of the postal clerck. He is not there to separate stamps, isn't he? Is he!?

In exchange, the first rates are not rising if you play by the new rule.

Two worries yet. For collectors, they will certainly have to order to the philatelic service or go to a philatelic office if they want single stamps without the ten cent penalty.

A sentence seems to indicate that La Poste wants to get rid of old unused postage stamps: if you do not use the points stamps, you will have to stick 0.69 euro facial value stamps... Either you continue to store them, or you lose ten cents per letter.

Eslinger-the-tattooing-woman (and the Philatelic Service Directors Circus) will perhaps find there a solution to make sure that tatooed stamps are kept in the collectors' albums...

Eugène Vaillé: first curator of the French postal museum

2009-09-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

The Société des amis du musée de La Poste^[1] is just publishing this month a special issue of its magazine dedicated to the first curator of La Poste's Museum: Eugène Vaillé, born in the high cantons of Hérault and a postal servant.

The book's cover, available for fifteen euros.

Laurent Albaret piloted this project of an illustrated and well-referenced biography: act of nominations, philatelic souvenirs of the museum's first exhibitions, familial archives.

Page 10, you discover the acts of a new postal servant's life in the late 19th and young 20th centuries. On the act naming Vaillé, the justice clerk stuck a fiscal stamp of dimension. I think the new employed young man had to pay for it.

Those, fluent in French, who read Albaret's recent articles in L'Écho de la timbrologie will now go deeper into the character's life and career.

If you are in Paris on 19 September or Bédarieux and Poitiers on 19 and 20, you can put the stamp issued for the fiftieth anniversary of Vaillé's disappearance, and the first day cancellation. The first pages of the magazine has got enough blank spaces for that, I think. The stamp designer, André Lavergne, will be signing artworks at the Paris first day site: La Poste's Museum, near Montparnasse Station.

The life of Eugène Vaillé in Hérault (Google Maps).

Hérault now, my native department. Vaillé was born there in 1875 in Bédarieux, a canton seat in the high grounds of the coastal department. He studied in Lodève where his father traded wool. After his successful competitive examination for a postal employment, he was named in 1894 at the telegraph center of Montpellier.

Then, like many public servants in France, even now, transfers by service's needs or will moved him to Normandy and Lyon. He finished in Paris where - happily for the French philately - he reached in 1920 the Ministry of Posts' Library...

He finished his life in the village of Riols, in Hérault, and was buried in Bédarieux.

[1] The Society of the Friends of La Poste's Museum, founded 1947, when the Museum opened.

A cent is a cent, and fifty thousand cents is a big note

2009-09-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

Since the introduction of the euro coins and banknotes on 1st January 2002, a Nessy monster appears regularly in the European populist press: one and two cent coins are going to disappear!

The rumor probably got its root into the Finnish old allergy to tiny coins. Add the legendary French-Mediterranean lazyness: to count.. bahhh! Plus the satisfaction of price-in-weight dealers to round their prices up to the next ten cents... only to make their clients happy. Even if these clients have been complaining on rounded inflating prices since 2002. Sigh.

Cent-Nessy has a little brother: Euro-Noty. The one euro coin will disappear in favor of a one euro banknote. Either to compete with the green dollar (the real ones and the false ones which are rumored to be everywhere in the world), or by lazyness again: too much weight in one's pockets.

On last Thursday, in France, Nessy and Noty have a brother. You swear it is not from the same family: the five hundred euro note is going to disappear!!!

Design: Robert Kalina for the European Central Bank (image source).

First, a picture for the reader who use their credit card as soon as twenty-five euros. Germans know it better, not by wealth, but because our European fellowmen like to weight in their hand how much their investments cost them: car, flat, rebuilding the house. Before to give the packet to the seller. A need born in an economic history marked by inflation and shortage between World War One and the rise of a strong Mark under the Federal Republic of 1949.

Le Journal du dimanche of yesterday, 13 September 2009, took notice of a report by Didier Migaud, Isère Member of Parliament. A text received by the Presidency of the French National Assembly on Thurday 10. It is about fiscal paradises and fiscal evasion.

Among the numerous solutions proposed by the Parliamentary Commission on Finances, there is the disappearance of the five thousand banknote. It is too easy to get thousands of euros out of the country because of this note's portability. More seriously, it is one step in a full policy: impose electronic or certified payment above a certain amount. Even to make an obligation for French banks to declare financial transferts to listed countries.

The more mediatic idea (no more five thousand notes) is not going to pass until many years because you need to get aboard all the Euro using States. But it will hide long enough the other more private life disturbing propositions.

Let's come back to collection: some dealers as Lutèce Diffusion are already trying to sell new euro coins by using the Nessy argument. Will they use the five thousand euro rumor to sell pristine banknotes well above their face value?

Joyeux anniversaire, Stamp Magazine !

2009-09-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

The British monthly Stamp Magazine is celebrating its seventy-five years of activity with the October 2009 issue, available in newstands until the first week of that month (in France, at the WHSmith on Rivoli Street, Paris).

To summarize: pleasant and easy-to-find reading of news and auctions pages, and specialised yet accessible articles of one to five pages.

On the competitive side, articles are more specialised and need a more attentive reading in Gibbons Stamp Monthly, even if the news pages need a serious revamp. GSM has been proposing its services since 1927, or 1890 if you consider the successive publications of Stanley Gibbons.

With this anniversary issue, a fac-similé of the October 1934 number 1 is offered and commented by Richard West. Sixteen of the current editors and writers present seventy-four philatelic events of the United Kingdom and the world from 1934 to 2008. Like often in Stamp Magazine way of writing, the small facts, long forgotten, are retrieved and told to learn again how the postage stamp and postal system evolved since the 1930s. Thank to Adrian Keppel, the European definitives are not forgotten.

An article by John Winchester on Croydon Airport's postal activities in South London echoes the 1934 article by R. Ridgway on the first airmail flights between England and Australia to be officialised in December 1934.

The news pages are catching, readable and wide: from a scandal in Norway where Nobel price of literature, but nazi supporter, Knut Hamsun was commemorated by a stamp, to the closing of a dealer's shop in London, due to high rent and web sales.

So British are, to a French reader of magazines, the auction sales. They are a large part of the advertising and have their own news part. Investphila of Switzerland proposed classical stamps of Uruguay while buyer-auctionist Tony Lancaster studies without excess the question of auction catalogues: illustrated or simple listing, free or sold.

The Monaco Postage Stamp Issuing Office continues to parade its model with stripping stamps. This time, the dress is of one well-affixed stamp. One stamp that aims to Britishmen: a Monaco stamp for the one hundred and fifty years of Big Ben.

Happy birthday, Stamp Magazine! And to read you again next month!

Meter from Hungary

2009-09-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

Printed on 22 November 2007 for a mail sent to France, here is a postage meter from Debrecen, Hungary:
Let's have some Magyar holidays to know if it is a meter from a post office? Are post office meter and private clients meter alike?

The thirty euros of September

2009-09-05T00:37:00.000-07:00

By multiplying the booklets, the completist collector of France is seeing the total amount going through the roof. But, he must not complain, he was warned: the Charter let Phil@poste, the French philatelic service, free to do whatever it wants with the benediction of the supposed representatives of federated collectors.

The wait for "stamps of the State" will last until the end of the month. Phil@poste dedicates these stamps for collectors, considered one day a faithful and researched clientship, and a burden to be rid of the other. On 21 Septembre, Eugène Vaillé will be stamped: a French postal librarian, archivist, historian and the founding curator of the postal museum of France. You have to know that because the stamp by André Lavergne is quite anonymous (a portrait and the front wall of the first museum). On 28, the abbay of Royaumont will be depicted by Line Filhon.

From a very long band of paper, the Gardens of France series became rectangular and will become album-friendly for once :p

Even if I found the Jardins des plantes of Paris too green under Gilles Bosquet's bruches while I remembered something as dusty as the Garden of Luxembourg. At least, it will compensate the so-RED booklet of last Spring.

Funfair on a six stamp minisheet by Cécile Millet, why not? First day in the Jardin d'Acclimatation is to attract families, we already know.

Let come the booklets.

Perhaps in all good movie theater on 30 September, after the post offices on the 21st, the Smile booklet with funny drawings with the Little Nicolas character. Youth literature by René Goscinny (yes, Astérix's father) ponctuated with sketches by Sempé. Stamps sold in theater, that will be as fun as funfair stamps first day in a actual funfair...

Corinne Salvi is invited to produce fourteen Invitation stamps, if you like her illustrating style.

Let's remark for both these booklets that the six tiny stamps are designed according their size compared to the eight larger.

Great change for the more than fifty year old philatelic institution of France. The Red Cross issue became a five stamp minisheet (look like a booklet to me). Five different ones for the one hundred and fifty years of the non governmental organisation founded by Henri Dunant. Four historical by Marc Taraskoff and a Rorschach figure hidden inside an artwork by Georges Braque (supposedly doves).

Why the change? Because of the money change I think:
-> ten stamps = 5.60 euros + the gift to the Red Cross = you must break a big tenner.
-> five stamps = 2.80 euros + the gist = you give a little fiver.

If Phil@poste is trying to discreetly relaunch this issue and bust the Red Cross gifts, that is good. Moreover, the issue is mobing two months earlier to avoid the competition of the giftfree Best Wishes booklet.

But this issue is posing me (and some readers who wrote to me) a problem: can a buyer with a Phil@poste bills ask for the regular reduction of income tax for caritative gifts? I will try to have some intels soon.

So, near thirty euros this month, including two euros for the Red Cross. And there are the Paris Autumn Show's issues to come...

Summer dreams in the French philatelic pond

2009-08-31T04:15:00.000-07:00

Some more sunny summer hours before September and the return of empty news, invasive communication in vain and the stamp printing plant of Phil@poste.

I begin to day-dream - or is the sun of Montpellier hitting my head?

Aude Ben-Moha would launch a new Yvert et Tellier catalogue: an encyclopedic Dallay-before-Maury, better in philatelic knowledges. And that for all issuing countries resort by continent, that could explain the slow renewal of the far continent volumes.

The French associations leaving their Federation for accepting La Poste's Diktat. They could fullt come back to the study of postage stamps and postal systems. Whose festival would be simpler, but numerous. Reaching masses to educate them and not to sell them expensive federal souvenirs. To summarize, like their british counterparts.

Following this model, the two French magazines declaring their independence to La Poste. They would continue to talk about new issues, but like they want, as discoverer philatelists, not doing the photocopying job of Phil@poste (or they could sell it advertissment pages for new stamps and first day cancels - what would it think of the number of issues? hihihi).

Their readers being more critical: looking themselves for intelligence into the multiplicity of medias, evaluating facts at many sources and, so, stop snivelling in the readers' pages when they miss one of the many souvenirs issued.

Forgetting new issues pages, readers that go to the articles, to read them, and to write them to send them to editors in chief to change styles and topics. Again, the example of the British societies.

Massive miracle! Eslinger, Phil@poste's Director, abandoning her stupid idea to tatoo engraved stamps with an insane symbol...

He?!

No, that is not dreaming. It is the sun striking my head.

Like the stamp of Spain told, free are those who wish to recycle the ideas I put in this message.

Quick and efficient: the OPT of New Caledonia

2009-08-28T01:44:00.000-07:00

Order sent on 19 August 2009 on a Metropolitan morning (Neo-Caledonian evening). Order ready on 20 August and cancelled at 15.38 at Nouméa mail center... but a delay happened marked with another datestamp on the twenty-first. Arrival in Montpellier this 28 August in the morning.

Here is part of the order: the new definitive Kagu stamp by Laurence Ramon and engraved by Pierre Albuisson.
It travelled with a sheet of four lenticular stamps showing the consecutive Kagu types since 1985.

A cover rich of stamps: Christmas and the Lunar year of the ox, completed with five definitives.

Of course, La Poste in Metropolitan aims for efficiency and not beauty: foreign registered barcode sticker put on the stamps, and not on the empty back of the cover. Sigh...

Cinephil school postage

2009-08-27T02:32:00.000-07:00

15 August-3 September each year, the same song in French media: the start of the school year. From the parents buying supplies to the little one's breakfast filmed on the fatal morning. Courage! One more week and the press will pass to another September habit.

School's intendants must manage their functioning budget, especially the communication expenses: teachers phoning parents, mails to alert parents of absent students, etc. The franking machine helps to control the expedited mail because it has to pass through one of the intendant's personel. Non professional mail will be more difficult to pass through than with disappearing postage stamps.

Gérard-Philippe middle school (collège) in Cannes communicates its pedagogic activities through the meter: film critic it seems. One more clue is on the show-site of the National Education about its involving in the Cannes Film Festival of 2009. A third class (last year of middle school in France) awarded C'est pas moi, je le jure !, a Canadian movie by Philippe Falardeau from a novel by Bruno Hébert, telling the story of an evil boy.

The meter: 0.51 euro, economic rate. Even under the limelight, there is not little savings.

Never satisfied

2009-08-25T01:35:00.000-07:00

Poor postal services that had to satisfy so evil clients, including me: too much stamps, not enough engraving, too much minisheets, not enough counters, too much this, too less that, never here, etc. To be digusted to do your job.

In France, the Charter of philately for example. A pretty text written on a napkin between appetizers and small wines. So sublime (the text... the wine too) that the French Philatelic Associations' Federation propose you a large version to hing above your study to remind you of what is good for you (memories of humourous false commercial for pet's food). Critics are, for now, icy fresh on the blogs like the first profesionnal one: Socrate's Chronical in September 2009 Timbres magazine can already be read on their website (click "Lire").

Myself am a boor: always to spit on Phil@poste's work all blog long while this noble institution just offers me more than eighty-five euros of Portraits de régions postage stamps for my mail. Yes, like that, for nothing but open heart... and some ticked cases on a directed survey burying the philatelic counters...

...

See! I did it again. While the people charged of sending my present (one of the four hundreds... so much unsold?) were careful enough to protect the stamps inside stamped books and artistic notebooks of little value (my flea market family will tell me how much they sold the book part).

Let's take it like it came: some Mariannes des Français and that will complete my mail budget. Thank you.

The worst part: even on serious topic (unphilatelic one so), clients go where the wind push them.

In France, they argue that they are queuing for too long times to post a letter or take a packet because of the ones coming for long banking operations. Postal only counters are called for that La Poste gives only for Christmas packets.

In Algeria, damn clients, they want exactly the opposite! The post of Algeria believed to do well by specialising the counters and avoid the read-again-up errors of the colonisator. Conclusion: clients are waiting and waiting and waiting to get their money from their banking account while the postal only counter is not very busy. So now they want multi-task counters.

31 August 2009: the Charter of Philately, French new useless best-seller, explained here in English.

Ellie in Somaliland

2009-08-22T00:48:00.000-07:00

Unthinkable but true. Like a French speaking region in Africa uses Marianne stamps on its mail.

Four thousands and three hundreds brothers of this British little penny, in their Harrison and Sons breed, put their overprinted teeth in the Horn of Africa, reported Roy of Machin Mania with the help of a Nederlandese Enschedé specialistin and of the great Douglas Myall.

Since 1991, the North of Somalia has been in a secessionist independence unrecognized by the States of the World (which seems very eager not to came back in divided Somalia). And that, under its historic name of Somaliland, taken from its colonial history as a British protectorate and its short independence in 1960.

Somaliland is one of the many elements of the Somalian geopolitic, mixing for near twenty years now regional independences of Somaliland (salmon on the underneath map) and Puntland (in blue), tribes/clans jealous of their advantages (including islamist inspired ones, in dark green) and a government that was once "exiled" to Kenya for many years before coming back to Mogadishu, and all the grey geographic and social areas in-between.

Know that the nine and a half million inhabitants of Somalia continue to live there. I remember a report in French newspaper Le Monde that told how, despite many civil war and criminal dangers, little entrepreneurs succeeded to create an efficient mobile phone network to take over the communication network from an decaying State. However, more than a thousand civilians already die this year in this never ended Somalian conflict.

The political situation in Somalia on 15 July 2009
(author : FAH1223, original file, licence : public domain).

A country that wish to be independent with a population living on a day-to-day basis: it created accordingly a government, a press agency, a Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, and finally issues postage stamps. That may reopen the "Somaliland" chapter in stamp catalogues if the criteria was the reality of a postal system and not only the membership of the Universal Postal Union.

I had not seen, even in reproduction, one of those Somaliland stamps until Sunday, when the Machin Mania blog received from Douglas Myall scans and confirmation of the existence of British stamps being used overprinted in Somaliland.

In 1996, British printer Harrison and Sons was in difficulty in a contract with the Somaliland government: no more security paper in stock. No alternative quickly enough to avoid the local lack of postage stamps.

Surely with the agreement of the British government, the printer took twenty-one and a half one penny Machin sheets in his printed stock to be delivered to the Post Office. Sent in Somaliland, the stamps were overprinted "REPUBLIC / OF / SOMALILAND / 500 SHILLIN". The new currency was introduced in October 1994 and replaced the shilling of Somalia by January 1995. Two overprints are known: with or without a five branch star on the face value.

As it should have been predicted... Somalilandese clients did not appreciated to put foreign stamps on their leaving mail, especially with the symbol of the former colonisator. They served only for a few days in April 1996 before being retreated and destroyed.

Myall estimates that the majority of sold stamps served on mail. That around thirty covers were bought to one office of the government [of Somaliland or the United Kingdom?].

Many questions:
- which sources can consolidate these writings?
- how many unused items survived? How many foreigners bought and kept these stamps for souvenir or future financing of their retirement?
- how many franked letters in these few days? To which destinations? Where are they now?

Note : the article's title is a reference to the good animation movie by Pixar Studios, Up. Nothing else.

Kagu stamp fireworks in New Caledonia

2009-08-20T02:37:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday 6 August 2009, the New Caledonian philately - and surely the Groupement philatélique Le Cagou local association - celebrates the one hundred and fifty years of the postal services inside the island. For which, the now famously mysterious soldier Triquéra executed a stamp portrait of Emperor Napoléon III.

A minisheet of four stamps recalled the history of mail transportation. Surprise, they are among the first French overseas postal operators' stamps to be sold on La Boutique du timbre, the web shop of the French metropolitan philatelic service, Phil@poste. The overseas stamps have been available in the Phil@poste paper catalogue, in the philatelic points (that Phil@poste might want not to be bothered with ?) and the Office of Posts and Telecommunications of New Caledonia itself. A new way of shopping overseas stamps that may help buyers to reach the free postage order.

However, those of you who already practised the shopping site of our reverated Metropolitan philatelic service and who read with the greatest attention Timbres magazine (#103, July-August 2009, page 19) are discovering that this recent newelty (late July for stamps from the French Polynesia OPT) is particularly selective.

From the philatelic fireworks of the 7 August 2009, it does not remember these two following issues:

Lenticular Kagus (French: Cagou): by Pierre Forget in the foreground, and by Raymond Coatantiec in the background
(OPT.NC website).

500 CFP francs (or 4,19 euros) for this lenticular stamp (OPT.NC proposes both one stamp alone or a sheet of four). Moving it in front of your eyes let you see the four last definitive types of New Caledonia from 1985 to 2003, and the new one selected after an art competition.

The printer's signature quickly reveals why this stamp is not sold by Phil@poste: it is a creation by the lenticular stamp leader, New Zealander Outer Aspect. Let's play again the psychodrama of 1999 when the New Caledonian minisheet by Cartor was refused by Phil@poste in its catalogues and post offices, concerned about the protection of its own printing plant near Périgueux (which, by the way, just recruted a new engraver, promoting artistic youth and communicating on devil marked engraved stamps) .

How much time before the first letters to the philatelic press from ill-informed collectors enraged to have missed this stamp? How high will the little speculation go in the following weeks?

More surprising the next omission is:

The new Kagu by Laurence Ramon (OPT.NC website).
For the actual look, read here.

Here is the new Kagu definitive series design by Laurence Ramon, an illustrator already used to the archipelago stamps, and interpreted in engraving by Pierre Albuisson.

It marks a return to detailled zoological reality, without symbolic geographic element by Jean-Richard Lisiak, known for stamps in New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna, or simplified and dynamic strokes by André Lavergne.

The year appears. The United States Postal Service does the same on its Forever Stamp to the ire of completist collectors and the unending joy of printing passionates.

Why not on the commercial site of Phil@poste (a good news for the OPT.NC site with secured payment in English)? A punishment to have a recent emergency definitive booklet printed by local Éditions imprimerie du Pacifique (EIP) that prints the personalised labels se-tenant to New Caledonian stamps too? More simply, all the first printed stock might be sent to Nouméa to replaced the Kagu byAndré Lavergne?

The stamp, mirror of the peoples?

2009-08-09T02:31:00.000-07:00

The postage stamp has often been described as a sign of a State's sovereignty.

Numerous new States issued stamps even if the government was still provisional, that a war was still going on and that no postal system was functioning. From Czechoslovakia in 1918 to the three postal operators of civil war devasted Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Many independantist movements used perforated labels to promote themselves: from the Brittany porte-timbres to the Scottish labels (for the latter, see Gibbons Stamp Monthly dated January 2009).

The Weapons of Victory, commemorative stamp for the end of World War 2.

But postage stamps are useful to solid existing States too. Caucasian tensions reappear in the Western medias with the tumultuous relations between Georgia and the Federation of Russia, one year after the abkhazian and ossetian-linked conflicts, in the middle of the Olympic Games (an event that may have caused the mediatic and political peace intervention in the middle of sleeping August).

Russian side, the 2009 philatelic program registered to the WADP Numebring System clearly shows the color: national pride through military fact:
- cities famous for their soldiers and military glories... far from the touristic stamps in the rest of the world ;
- victory at the battle of Poltava in 1709 ;
- anniversary of the Central Navy Museum (understand the War Navy Museum of Saint Petersburg) ;
- a history of the Cossacks ;
- the 1945 Victory through the weapons used by the Red Army ;
- birthday of military pilots, including Yuri Gagarin.

The message goes to foreigners too with a reminder of fifty years of a nuclear navy.

But Russia welcomed peoples: a stamp for the four hundreds years since Kalmyks stayed in the Empire. The name of these Mongol migrants stand for "the ones who stayed". Nowadays, the Republic of Kalmykia is located not far from the Caucasus mountains.

Will diplomacy avoid new post-USSR conflicts? Lots of efforts would be needed: issued 18 July, a stamp honoring Andrei Gromyko, sovietic diplomat, minister of Foreign Affairs during the thirty most icy years of the Cold War, known as Mister Niet, one of the most conservative communists in the 1980s...

Finnish drops of Valentine's Day

2009-08-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

Drops of Happiness (Onnen pisaroita) was the topic for the Valentine issue of Posti, Finland's postal operator (the issue on the official website / on the WADP Numbering System).

The design is in the line of the work of her author, Janine Rewell (do not trust the complete white main page).

Issued with other four stamps on a brilliant sheet (in black on the scan), big was the surprise to see that kind of stamps on my mail. A big change compared to the meters and classical commemoratives.

With a better renderinf og the colors (Posti) and
for the brilliant see the picture by Éric du Jura.

Received late May 2009 thank to Postcrossing, the postcard was not cancelled. Many hypothesis:
- chance error ;
- the card format - a big fourteen centimeter square - may trouble the machine and, by economy, avoid the human check and handcancellation ;
- a dream: to saveguard the brillant testimony of Valentine, the mail bearing this stamp had not to be touched by ink...
- a nightmare: this stamp is systematicly uncancelled to avoid breaking the cancelling machines.

In France, since 2000, tailors and fashion creators multiplies the heart shape stamps. In fact, when a personalised stamp in that shape?

In Guyana, discovering Cacao and Hmongs

2009-07-31T04:41:00.000-07:00

A post on the blog of a Russian collector: a French cancellation useful for maximum cards and cachet covers linked to the recent chocolate stamps for the four hundreds years of the arrival of cacao in France. But too, the discovery of some tragic pages of the French colonial history, the United States military history and the South East Asian history.

Agrandir le plan

Starting from Cayenne (North of the frame), follow national road N2 to the South.
Turn to the right at Camp Léonce (Google Maps).

Around forty-fifty kilometers to the South of Cayenne, in French Guyana, the commune of Roura extent itself on 3685 square kilometers including the hamlet of Cacao, at the beginning of the Amazonian Forest. First an "inhabitation" named Sainte-Marie-des-Cacaos (Holy Mary of the Cacaos), then a penal colony (1854-1859), the place has been hosting Lao hmong etnic refugees since 1977.

These moutainers are still victims of three decades of continue persecutions [and ignored by Westerners and their media] since the nineteen seventies, because part of them were preferably recruited as soldiers by France during the Indochina War and by the United States during the Việt Nam War.

Since their welcoming in Guyana, the pioneer hamlet has become one of the suppliers of Cayenne city for fresh vegetables, in a oversea département heavily dependent on importations from Metropolitan France. With courage, work and elbow grease, entreprises can discretly [very discreet in French media] succeed in the economicly fragile French Overseas.

A radio report from the Network France Oversea (RFO), in February 2009, with links to Cacao's institutions ca, be listened here (in French).

Agrandir le plan

With the satellite view and zoom, you can see the agricultural valley of Cacao (Google Maps).

Since 2002, "BPX" was added to the datestamp of Cacao's post office
(from ascan sent by Pierre Millien).

The hamlet has got a post office with a datestamp stating: "973 - CACAO - BPX" for the French Guyana département number - name of the place and the mystery. Thank to Pierre, I can tell that BPX means "bureau postal de proximité" (proximity post office). Let's find now where is the BPX in La Poste's hierarchy of post offices?

Because the place is near of Cayenne and accessible by road, the postman's round must be less adventurous than the one, more upstram inside the forest, reported by Gauthier Toulemonde in the DVD Des courriers très spéciaux.

A country and its three pose stamp

2009-07-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

Postcards exchange website Postcrossing's statistics tells that Finnish people is the third nation represented, after the United States inhabitants and continental Chinese. Nine per cent of the soon-to-be fifteen thousands registered users.

However, among the soon-to-be two millions seven hundreds thousands cards exchanged, on out of five came from Finland! Certainly, being there from the start five years afo helps when Chinese users has been arriving for just months ago.

In 2009, a Postcrosser regularly receives cards of Finland, Germany, the United States and the People's Republic of China.

Hopefully, to avoid the receiver's lassitude, Posti is philatelicly inspired: wherever your cards came from Finland, they got rarely the same stamps on them. The thing is the 50 gram nationwide rate is the same than the 20 gram worldwide rate: 0.80 euro. An expensive national postal system for sure, but that let many stamps available for international mail, without having to produce/go buy small cent stamps.

Seldom is intaglio. Frequent are surprises: read me again or Éric.

Today, a simple animal stamp, very topical: a tau emperor. To me a wing retracted butterfly. To scientists and topic collectors,

Aujourd'hui, un simple timbre animalier, fort thématique : une hachette. Plus vulgairement un papillon ailes repliées. Plus scientifiquement, Aglia tau, present in Europe.

Put "the right way up" for my eye.

Put the "right way up" for the face value and the sender's eye.

Put the "right way up" to know who it is and where it came from.

Many opportunies of stamps and positioning of them on mail. In France, these days, you need a massive stocks of 1, 5 and 10 cent Marianne stamps or be pleased with a little number of European and worldwide rate stamps. For the latter, there is only one 0.85 euro stamp available from the philatelic program. A mean to encourage the sale of the eight worldwide stamp booklet with copy-paste monuments of France? To force the use of "stamps of writing"? A heavy increased worldwide rate to come soon? [The same happened with the former European rate before it went up 5 cents.]

The automobile association in Germany

2009-07-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

Holliday topic: safety of car drivers and passengers.

Here is a thin postcard promoting stamp collection and writing, a card which was, I think, cut out a junior magazine and stick on a more concrete card.

The topic of the 2003 stamp is the ADAC (on the Wikipedia in German). Founded in 1903, the Allgemeine Deutsche Automobil-Club is a very pertinent, thoughtful and open lobby: civil patrol, repair mobile services (both by what appear on the stamp), diffusion of intelligence on many domains (local road laws and international too, gas, environment, etc.).

A whole lot of activities that surprised the French I am: I rarely heard of such things when French pro-car lobbies are speaking against government in France.

Elizabeth on Australia's stamps

2009-07-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

On the website of operator Australia Post, began an exhibition of postage stamps figuring the Queen of Australia, Elizabeth II.

For now, the first part about definitive series and the great events of the begining of her reign. Could the second part be exhaustive knowing that the Australian post has got a yearly "Queen's Birthday" one-, two-stamp, even sometime minisheet, issue since 1980?

Summer reading brought postal frankings

2009-07-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

Sun, bike, garrigue with non-stoppable stereophonic cicadas, chlorined swimmings (I am not fan of marinated fauna), readings, I would almost forget philately. But to receive my order of books with this on the box:

A postage meter printed by Ace Comics' machine, a library specialised in United States comic books.

Cut, this franking is thick for a collection. With a cutter, we are going to slice the board thinly. Put the bottom half to recycling, and the other into the British modernity album.

A modern postal museum

2009-07-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

While in France through blog, twitter, ready-to-print articles for magazines, a first day of sale in September 2009, etc., La Poste's museum in Paris (on the right avenue when you face the Montparnasse Tower) advertised on how many things happen there, how modern the institution is, etc...

...the National Postal Museum in Washington proves it!

Born 1993 of the Smithonian Institution already collecting philatelics since 1886 and of the United States Postal Service, the National Postal Museum possesses a rich website, including Arago, a marvellous database full of documents and intels on the philatelic and postal history of the United States.

It is not enough! The museum entertained a channel on YouTube with forty-eight videos from pictures of the postal services in 1903 to the mail incoming on World War Two soldiers, through academic conferences (oh! the Royal Philatelic Collection by its Curator Michael Sefi) and, even, the answer to the greatest question of all:

why were postage stamps created?

„Traurige Juli“ : Gerd Aretz

2009-07-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

Sooner this month of July 2009, German university professor and artist Gerd Aretz died at the age of 79, after almost fifty years of service to the Federal Minister of Finances, responsible of the German philatelic program.

Gerd Aretz

(website of the Bergische Universität Wuppertal)

During this half-century, he designed more than one hundred and thirty postage stamps of the Federal Republic of Germany, issued by the Bundespost and then the Deutsche Post.

Certainly, his main creation would be considered the Women of the German History series (Frauen der deutschen Geschichte), a definitive series in use from 1986 to 2003, that lived the German reunification and the arrival of the euro currency.

They were replaced by photographs of flowers.

Calendar coincidences

2009-07-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

On this French National day, while France - its leaders and the spectators of the rock concert at the feet of the Eiffel Tower at least - are trying to convince they are the heirs of our glorious Republic, let's go one week later.

The next 21 July, astrophilatelists will celebrate the forty years of the first man on the Moon... with the help of many postal operators other than the one concerned, the United States' one. In the United Kingdom, the Royal Mail is publishing a Smiler Sheet, a sheet of stamps se-tenant with overpaid topical labels, while competitor dealers ordered their owns to the Royal Mail.

The 21... for an European. The 20 July evening then in the United States.

A date that helps me get to this Postcrossing postcard, full of coincidences: we are going to celebrate the sixty-first anniversary of the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler by a group of military, on 20 July 1944. First step for the Walküre operation.

Right after the fail, Stauffenberg (above portrait) was shot without trial. Moltke (below), founder of the plotting groupe the Gestapo named "Circle of Kreisau", already arrested, was sentenced to death and executed in January 1945.

Tribute from the sender. A will to link the two passions of the receiver: philately and history. Cancellation date: 8 May 2009, when we remembers the end of Nazi Germany and of the World War Two in Europe.

Green Summer in Danmark

2009-07-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

A friend recently emptied his cave and sent me some postcards and envelopes he found, including this Danish home:

Part of a six stamp series, this six crown one presents a building of 1792 in Liselund, on Møn island.

The artistic credits is quite long, from right to left: engraver Martin Mörck from a photograph by Jens Lindhe of a architectural work by Andreas Kirkerup.

Charming place for a summer afternoon.

Day of the Franks in Germany

2009-07-05T06:08:00.000-07:00

No, our neighbours over the Rhine river do not have nostalgia about the currency of their past Mediterranean holidays, a currency that was happily ended with the euro. This nostalgia is far more older.

On this Sunday, July 5th 2009, and that since 2006, Franconia remembers its past as an imperial circle inside the Holy Roman Empire, from 1500 to 1806 and sinister warmonger Bonaparte. The circle encompassed the North of nowadays Bavaria.

A festival takes place each year and is the object of special datestamps and pictorial cancellations, as a quick Google serach shows. The one on my Postcrossing card is a little too light. It came from mail center #90 that sorts mail of the agglomeration of Nuremberg, inside the historical Franconia then.

For the German speaking readers, here is the official site of the Day of the Franks.

Late idea for the Jean Moulin stamp

2009-07-04T00:58:00.000-07:00

Specialist of East center France and experienced firstdayer, Éric Contesse went back with a historical touristic report from the first day of sale of the stamp announcing the opening of a memorial to Jean Moulin, in the house in Caluire where the leader of the French Resistance was captured by the Gestapo.

The portrait used by engraver André Lavergne was the picture taken by Marcel Bernard during Winter 1939, in Montpellier :

In 1999, the City inaugurated a reminder (very high affixed) that remind where the now mythical image with hat and scarf was created. The plaque is located on the level under the water reservoir of the Peyrou garden when you are going by the south way to the Arceaux, that is the final part of the acqueduct.

I was waiting to see the stamp with my own eyes, not the informatic one sent to the press. The different treatment for the eyes embarrass me. And, like some other intaglio printed stamps of this June, I find the printing quite "light"... but I am not a printing specialist.

On the margin, six color markers.

The design of the two elements is heavily classic: the sadly known house of Doctor Dugoujon, place of the future memorial, and the portrait.

Thank to the GoogleMaps/Streetview link above, you can see the house despite a tree. By clicking along the "montée de la Castellane" street, you can detail the monument describe by Éric, on the Gouailhardou square, and its composition.

The first picture I saw of this monument to Jean Moulin, I discovered it on a 20 June 2009 article of Le Progrès, Lyon based newspaper.

(Photograph by Pierre Augros, Le Progrès, 20 June 2009 ;
reproduced here in a highly reduced size for illustrative purpose)

Very good picture: the observer took possession of the monument and found a part of the meaning placed (hidden?) by scluptor Christiane Guillaubey. Would you look at it very straightforward and saw the usual representation of Moulin? Or turn around these blocks of wall that conceal from the ennemy the resistant that get assured the meeting place is safe?

Reinterpreted by engraving, Pierre Augros' picture would become a postage stamp that would have be a complete "stamp of the nation", from its topic to the public including its message. A stamp that would have honored both Jean Moulin and all "the army in rags".

But that would have bumped into the classicism of the philatelic makers with the commercial fear to confuse the most faithful of collectors, even let more time for the artist to have a eventual research work. Yes, that must be simpler and less expensive to put a Greek letter...

Recycle and compost

2009-06-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

In my mental pictures, ink point cancellations from Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States are ugly, dribbled and unreadable while I have regularly received well done cancels.

Posted on 8 May 2009, this postcard was cancelled in Plymouth at 3:06pm. Its commercial message invite to recycle and produce compost through a web adress: www.recyclenow.com/compost. Unless you stick the stamps on the message part of the card, all stamps will be cancelled wherever he is on the upper line with such a cancel.

Recycle now is a information campaign about recycling launched by British non profitable company WRAP (for Waste & Resources Action Programme). Its goals are to limit waste, develop the reuse of material and a better managing of resources.

In France, lack of pictorial cancels, of cancels opened to paid commercial or general public announcement, the enveloppe finishes mostly in the garbage, not even the good one when I see what my neighbours do in the residence's bins...

Back on sheet margins: to the right now!

2009-06-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

Issued in March 2009, the stamp about the Palace of the Popes in Avignon had been given a visual, cultural and historical interest by having portraits of these Popes printed on its left hand margin of the stamp sheet.

I went to the always-useful, always-well-organised and alway-so-polite philatelic counter of Montpellier. I bought these stamps and receive the twenty left-hand side stamps. Rumors said the left hand portraits are quite popular.

Here is the scan of these "stamps of the nation" before being altered into "stamps of writing" by the sole application of my fingers, without using any fake alchimic signs.

Observe the great upper ligne that gives the monetary content of the sheet (printed in intaglio like the design), the technical mentions and barcode of this one sheet ("technocontemporary" ink points) and, pleasure of the eyes, the color control squares.

Postcrossing penpals of Switzerland and the Union will be happy to receive this Martin Mörck's piece of art.

A Charter of Philately in France

2009-06-27T01:02:00.000-07:00

Finally, La Poste's president signed the text.

It can be read on the French Philatelic Associations Federation (FFAP).

The text will certainly be published in September issue of the French philatelic press and comment all Autumn long by their readers.

The content is sooooooo classic, sooooooo predictable, sooooooo already done for years by the three signatories: the FFAP, the French Stamp Dealers' Union and La Poste. With a tiny problem: one of the signatoriesis both a director of La Poste's philatelic service and a president of the Association for the Development of Philately that gave money to help organizing happenings.

My thoughts: as useless as the so-called states generals of April 2008, even dangerous. An example: if one mean of issue a stamp exists, La Poste will have respect the Charter.

For those who can read French, other comments : Pierre Jullien (very critic despite being one of the preparatory investigator for the states-general...), Dominique sur le Blog philatélie whose readers and modern collectors wonder where the machine stamp are, even La Poste's Museum's Friends Society have doubts about what a postage stamp of France is now... To be updated.

Tourism in Switzerland

2009-06-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Questionning with this advert postcard from the Tourism Office of Switzerland:

with markings and labels of La Poste (it is one of my last mail following me after my one year old move to the South). On the upper right corner, print on the card, a stamp-like picture of the Matterhorn and a cancellation:

« Taxe perçue / P.P. / CH-3030 Bern »
(taxe perçue = port payé = postage paid)

The commercial continues with this illustration to look like real mail: a touristic stamp on a postcard? Switz postmark for high number of mail sending? It is plausible for the mark, less for the picture surrounded with teeth.

Communication... for a beautiful country though.

Blue Mondays at La Poste

2009-06-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

My postal union discovery of this Tuesday 23 June, in the Montpellier issue of Midi libre newspaper, the "Blue Mondays" at the French post.

After a short research on Google and Google News, this practise is just beginning and very localised social conflicts are arising because of it, more when postmen have been already worried for their job when the regional mail system is soon to be reorganised.

Note that my little summary has certainly many gaps. The pieces of intelligence I found seem to appear when postmen in conflict succeeded to catch a local newspaper's attention, like in Alès on 4 June.

For La Poste, "Blue Mondays" are a group of Mondays when there is the less volume of mail to be sorted (hence this Summer experiment). Which days, less postal personnel will be called to work. First problem: their colleagues will be put on holidays that day.

Less personnel because only 40% of the mail will be treated on that day. A link to the Day+2 rumor?

Less personnel, but all the postal rounds will be done. La Poste thinks that 40% of mail can be distributed with a reduce postal corps. Part of this task force are thinking the task will be impossible under normal working conditions (time, distance, etc.).

To be continued.

What does she have on her head?

2009-06-21T01:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, what is this object? This one that transformed Arnold Machin's sculpture into Pure Monarchy when the Stamp Advisory Committee asked him a diadem instead of a tiara on the royal head.

(photography The Royal Collection, 2009)

This crown was created in 1820 for the coronation of George IV by jewellers Rundell, bridge and Rundell. After him, queens has been wearing it, examples in artworks: Victoria on a portrait by Winterhalter in 1843, Alexandra by Luke Fildes in 1905 or on a picture with her daughters, Mary visiting Berlin in 1913.

The reign ofElizabeth II made it omnipresent: painting by James Gunn in 1954, on the obverse of many British and Commonwealth coins designed by Raphael Maklouf and put on circulation between 1984 ans 1997, and, of course, United Kingdom's definitive stamp series since 1967.

The circle is crowned by four crosses alterning with four ornaments each including the three symbolic flowers of the United Kingdom countries: the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland and the shamrock of Ireland.

And Wales? So long united to England that it was forgotten in this 1820 jewelry? Or had it not find its floral emblem yet (there were only the three quoted flowers on the first stamp of Malta in December 1860)? Or if the leek was there, was it judge disgraceful on a royal crown?

A wealthy ressource (pictures are tiny though, even for paintings in the public domain) on The Royal Collection website. Clic on the items in the right hand menu.

Stamps of France to be written in Greek!

2009-06-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

After the anglophobic parasital comment coming from the neighbour of the videorecorder about the eurocent/centime difference during the financial report, I was surprised the same man did not comment - on another linguistic problem - Françoise Eslinger's speech, Director of Phil@poste, France's great printer of sticky postage paper, on 13 June 2009, during the Congress of the French Philatelic Associations' Federation (FFAP) in Tarbes.

She announced the concrete results of reflections from the states generals, an event that was reminded by very few people now... Forget the November 2008 stamp classification, here is the one of June 2009. The first was too imprecise because it gave too precise definitions. When one of the leaders of French organised Philately concluded...

Now, there are four groups, simple and easy to determine:
#1: stamp announced in the philatelic program, that Eslinger called "stamp of the nation" (where are the "stamp of the State"?),
#2: the definitive stamp,
#3: the "stamp of writing",
#4: the personalised stamp.

Personally, it seemed to me that these categories has been existing since the late 1990s when the third and fourth ones emerged... Adter all, time was cyclic for the Ancient Greeks.

But, back to my linguistic problem. You have to recognize these four types. So:
#2: may I (re-)introduce you to Marianne?
#3: the adhesive booklets and announcement stamps, more easy to teach to non philatelic buyers at the new Carré d'encre shop in Paris. Yes, why Aimé Césaire or Franz Stock have got right of a "stamp of the Nââââ-tion" is not very glittering.
#4: go to So.co.ta or Dominique's for some tricks.

The problem is for #1 because the targeted collectors, less and less members of the FFAP (watch the moral report), addicted to filling up albums, must be able to recognize them to stop harrassing Eslinger's ears with the too numerous stamps that are issued.

Hence the great solution: a φ.

The golden ratio! Yes, because the "stamps of the [French] nation" are certainly weel proportionated. And it is the first letter of the Greek root that gave the word philately. A good finding from the communication office.

A scandal to me: a Greek letter on a stamp of France?

With judicious and pertinent examples given by Eslinger: the royal shadow in the United Kingdom (that is the second medaillion created 1967 by Arnold Machin after the famous stamp to replace the 1965 temporary one by David Gentleman), the silver fern in New Zealand (notice the speaker's ill-preparation. Minus one point, we are during high school exams these days) and the use of a sole typeface in Monaco.

Conclusion for Phil@poste staff: the phi, symbol of the "stamp of the nation".

On commercial ground: with the complete opening of the mail market in France, will it not be better a new zealander or bosnia-herzegowinan solutions ? A nâââââ-tional symbol for the former or the brand of the postal operator for the latter. The postal bird of La Poste should be on every postage marks treated by this operator to make a difference with its competitors.

More profound: does my nation not have enough symbols to illustrate the philatelic program stamps chosen by the political power? If the tricolor flag may disturb a stamp composition, why not a golden medaillion (or silver or black and white) of Marianne in the British fashion?

I will see how the integration of this stupid phil symbol makes me disgust of some new stamps. But it will not lead me to use "stamps of writing" on my mail as long as I find most of them ugly (while imagining the Hard Times Marianne...).

Despite Postcrossing, will the vicious circle of less paper mail touch me? Or will I succomb to the siren song of the postal competitors, efficiency and price versus symbol-national stain?

Look at the video, you will know why the Charter-noddies always speak of ironing in the months to come. More on the French Charter of Philately when the Board of French Philatelic Frogs will want to read it to the people...

Mucha exhibition in Montpellier

2009-06-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

The city of Montpellier is awaiting a new temporary exhibition at the Fabre Museum: about Alfons Mucha, between 20 June and 20 Septembre 2009.

This 17 June 2009, Midi libre newspaper wrote about the money paper designer he was in the first years of Czechoslovakia, after World War One: banknotes, postage stamps,...

(midilibre.com)

During Autumn 1918, the castle of Prague was the victim of the artist's effort, when he was not used to such a tiny format. The text-telling in this French paper reminds me of something... maybe a philatelist helped the journalist with articles from the French philatelic magazine?

Reminder: two years ago on this blog.

28 August 2009: Adrian studied the sun from the project to the successive issues.

Post & Go for dumbs

2009-06-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

Ah! Philatelic investigation! Listen to the rumors, go check them in post offices, eye lots of stamp sheets... opposing to waiting the information being published in the Official Monitor of the French Philately.

Reporter Brian Sinnott came back with sreenshots of the Post & Go automates, as a how-to-use-it for others.

Alway a summary ici, or wait for the monthly "Machin Watch" in Gibbons Stamp Monthly, whose author John M. Deering is lucky (compared to a French author) to put such detailed intels on British definitive postage in such short time (maximum two or three months, due to the dead line of the magazine printing).

Spinning out the Head

2009-06-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

After October 2008 and the Post and Go machine printed stamps on demand launched in Bristol, then February 2009 and the new security measures:

One of the Machin with security features, the name given in Royal Mail's Stocklist.

If the slits are visible, you have to scrutinize the stamp to see the security printing waves in the name of the postal operator on the blue background (easily visible on the white of the value) and on the royal portrait.

Now, Ian Billings of Norvic Philatelics reports the first day of an experiment. At the Camden High Street post office, starting 8 June, the saint effigy with waves, intermitting slitted frame and simulated teeth illustrates the paper on which postal counter's Horizon meters are printed (the Horizon labels are currently printed on white adhesive paper). Like that:

(Norvic Philatelics blog)

Postal clercks are to use these labels only to stick them themselves on express letters, when consumers will ask for a special delivery service (with arrival guarantee the next day before 9am or 1pm), for 4.95 pounds sterling.

No label are to be given to a client. They must only exist printed with postal mentions and uncancelled (except for the first days produced by Norvic Philatelics et Brian Sinnott), and to be stuck to the departing letter.

If the Camden experiment is successful, many means to mark the payment of a postal service will bear the effigy of Elizabeth II by Arnold Machin.

For philatelic tourists, after the visit of the automated office in Tudor Street, you will go at 114-120 Camden High Street. This Northern Central London post office is located south next to the Underground Camden Town station, around two kilometers north-east from Saint Pancras railway station and at five hundreds meters from the north eastern entrance of Regent's Park. Prepare to send your envelope to an adress in the United Kingdom because only the 4.95 pounds special delivery service is part of the experiment.

Return with a United States postal surprise

2009-06-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Finally, my cybernetic friend do want to obey its rightful master, once the latter fired the graphic card. In the same week, this postcard arrived from the United States thank to Postcrossing. A non so common card considering the marcophilic state of this country.

Stamps were cancelled with a red ink datestamp, and not the tiny dots that give sometimes a very unreadable form that can be a city, a State and even a date of mail treatment. In a post office of Rochester, Minnesota, on 3 June 2009, a clerck accepted to get his hand to the handstamp.

The pink dot lines? Mail sorting codes from the French post unusually on top because of the black line code from the United States postal service at the bottom.

These cancellations are not usuel. But, the look-alike ones a Virtual Stamp Club thread is looking for are done by cancelling machines that the USPS announced to be completely replaced by ink dot machines.

Amended because of a misreading of the VSC thread.

Touristic June in France

2009-06-01T00:25:00.000-07:00

On the five issues (ten stamps and one minisheet) previewed for June, five can be considered as touristic. Historic tourism for the one about the Jean-Moulin Memorial (and one hundred and ten years of his birth).

Among them, four are printed in intaglio. We can compare how each engraver treat photographed landscapes and composed the illustrations.

Issued during the Congress of the French Philatelic Associations' Federation (FFAP), 12-14 June, "Tarbes" by Elsa Catelin appear to me as an accumulation of multiple elements, while all this is a whole view of the Massey Museum.

The "castle of la Bâtie d'Urfé » by Marie-Noëlle Goffin, issued on 8 June, is classical in its composition: the main building and an artwork the visitor can discover there.

Pierre Albuisson created a panoramic of the Bourse Plazza, in Bordeaux. Issue for 22 June in the commercially beneficial context of the town's club winning the French soccer league. The water mirror is a local attraction of great length (compared to the Place du Nombre-d'Or Poseidon fountain in Montpellier).One out-of-place element helps to create a night landscape whereas the sky location remains white: the statue which is on top the Girondins monument, evking the political victims of the Terror (1793-1794). A great piece of art, this stamp is.

André Lavergn's stamp on the Jean-Moulin Memorial in Caluire, inside the house where the trap closed itself, can be seen as the World War 2 Memorial stamp of the year, emphasizing the role of the French Resistance and the one who became its "face" in the memory, Jean Moulin.

Celebrating their sixty-fifth borthday one year before? Christo and Jeanne-Claude, monumental wrappers of things, give some fantasy to the artistic series, generally reproducing graphic works. Value at 1.35 euro is a change to the 0.56 described before. An ancient plane of 0.56 euro will certainly charm the aerophilatelists for the centenary of the Gordon-Bennett Cup, the flying one, after the vrooooming one some years ago... a time when the three euro souvenirs were born in France.

Finally, often badly judged, sometimes a chance to attract a younger public (including a first day of issue at the Jardin d'acclimation...), but alway at three different denominations: the Nature series.

This year, the two nationwide 0.56 euro stamps depicted endangered species (panda and rhinoceros) and the international ones two species forever disappeared: the auroch for the European Union rate and the condor of California for the worldwide one. Known for animalian paintings, Christophe Drochon succeed to put many different climatic places and vegetations on one scene for the minisheet. Perhaps the isolated stamps will gain if the perforating machine was more working with the artist before "hole-ing" the minisheet.

The event of the month that will be blogged starting mid-June and commented during next Autumn in the philatelic press, is the FFAP Congress during which Our Majesty La Poste will concede a Chart to the organised philately... Will the text be pertinent? [answer depending on yourself's opinion] If yes, will it be respected by the monarchy?

My republican constitution (that certainly can be acclimatate to British rule) makes me judge alone of my French stamp acquisition: Mrs. Goffin's and Misters Albuisson's and Lavergne's stamps will be on my mail, like the disappeared species because, being so realistic, the Nature series is alway appreciated by foreign people on Postcrossing.

Don't panic

2009-05-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

Less activities here this week, and less pictures for some times. My computer is striking without evident cause, but the lack of staruping... The old rusty back up plan was reintegrated to full power, understand full power of his 6 years... an eternity in computering.

But, you have many blogs to read:
How many ways do you have to sort Machin stamps? It is the game on the MachinMania. I found twenty-one ways, even twenty-two if... Answers previewed for next week.

Eric du Jura found why the La Poste and the French members of Parliament had been postponing all the way they could the competition on all mail: 52 eurocents to send a simple letter worldwide from Germany!!! You post it at a private operator contracted to TNT. The postal rate war will be ugly... if it wants to arrive in France and other countries.

Pierre Jullien begins the photographic report of the gala dinner of the prestigious first exhibition (and prestige sale) of the Club philatélique de l'Élysée.

Toshiba-dated-again meter

2009-05-21T03:01:00.000-07:00

A postage meter saw on a mail from Timbropresse, Timbres magazine's publisher:

In black, Toshiba machine's points can be recognized. The letter was sent on 28 April 2009 and redated on the morrow.

Mail franked with meter must be deposed at a post office the same day. Either the sender put this mail on the 29 April, and the Toshiba date is a correction from La Poste. Or La Poste mail system failed to deliver it on day+1 and confirm the treatment on the 29 April by this second date?

I think the first hypothesis is the correct one. I believed I saw such an example on one of the blogs I regularly read, but, of course in this sort of occasion, I could not put my eyes on it again.

0.54 : priority mail?

2009-05-16T01:13:00.000-07:00

Postage meter printed on a cover sent by a French political party:

« La Lettre prioritaire », the French priority service at 0.54 euro, instead of 0.56: error in programming the meter machine? Improved rate for a big sending customer?

Who is this Victor Segalen?

2009-05-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Who is this Victor Segalen that I discovered on a mail sent by a French association, still using its old stamp storage?

By the design and engraving of Claude Andréotto, a traveller from Britanny, explorer of Asian and Pacific spaces.

Reading the article on the Wikipedia in English helps precise things: China and French Polynesia hosted this naval doctor and writer.

The Muse is still walking

2009-05-12T07:32:00.000-07:00

Replacing the cactus, the new philatelic Muse of Monaco continues to walk the stage in Stamp Magazine (June 2009, page 36) to tick the collectors' curiosity.

This time, with a identical aspect, the scandalous loss of clothe became the beautiful dispersal of a flagrance.

The one of the 2009 Tour de France's Grand Start, which will be the topic of a 0.56 euro stamp red and white with a red cyclist.

Trick at Ludgate Circus: hop not here, hop it there

2009-05-10T05:21:00.000-07:00

The attentive readers of Timbres magazine #100 (April 2009, pages 90-92) and of this blog (here is the memory fountain) know that Royal Mail finally launched an automatic stamp and label delivery system, despite the epic defiance of its employees. Since 8 October 2008, at Bristol, and little by little in some cities, Nixdorf's ProPostal 2000 machines have been delivering Post and Go labels for weighted items and Faststamps figuring the eternal Machin effigy.

Brian Sinnott continues to follow the machines' advance and the collection of this stamps. Follow carefully, you, futur philatelic tourists to London!

At the Ludgate Circus post office (code 024003 on stamp), 16-18 New Bridge Street, in London center, facing Blackfriars station, the machine ceased its function. It sold labels and stamps from 15 October 2008 au 22 April 2009. Cause : the office closed despite petitions from people and firms of this business district. The City of London provided a list of three surviving offices.

To partially replace this office, turn at the corner into Tudor Street. A anonym door will open you a space of complete autonomy, no postal clerck in sight, but four machines in function as soon as 20 April with the 242007 code.

Obviously, collectors quickly understood the value of Ludgate Circus machine stamps: a little bit more than six months of existence for its code... £$€...

But, be careful, the inaugural case of Bristol created perfide desire. Having bought stamps in Bristol and having at disposal a datestamp, some malignant people are trying to sell first day covers bearing machine stamp older then the 8 October and a cancellation distant from Bristol.

To avoid deception, you have to understand the stamp code printed at the bottom, very useful when collectionite struck you in time of speculation, watch here:
- number of the office,
- number of the machine inside the office,
- number of the machine's session,
- number of the transaction during this session.
Same thing on the Post and Go labels.

Merry is the subject
of Elisabeth
for not he knows
French pallor.

Philatelic videos

2009-05-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

TV Timbres is a little asleep, but is certainly for the three last years, one (the only?) of the serious tentatives to produce audio-visual philately.

In the United States, the American Philatelic Society's President is taking initiative: post a philatelic video on youTube before 30 June 2009, inform Omar Rodriguez, and you may be the winner of the President Challenge awarded with two hundreds and fifty dollar of APS products and services.

Among a how-to-do-a-video guide, Mister Rodriguez points to his try on the history of Mexico and its provisional issues. If you prefer celebrities' letters, watch Tom Richards'.

All the participating videos are listed here.

8 May 2009 :
And when you find one, others are attracted. Andrew Reeves-Hall, a Canadian living in the United Kingdom, filmed the last day of work at the Delivery Office of Whitchurch, on 2 May 2009: arrival and sorting of mail by sectors, then receivers ; the counter. Closures of offices and the reorganisation of the postal system has been under motion and debates for many years now in the United Kingdom.

Uchronical postage stamps

2009-05-03T01:50:00.000-07:00

Uchrony or alternate history is a literary genre inside science-fiction, whose goal is to imagine a rewritten history. Action takes place in a modified line of events compared to the history we live in. The famous "What if..." The French word seems to be created by Charles Renouvier in the 19th century for his book Uchronie, l'utopie dans l'histoire (not yet numericly available on the web).

Among other topics, the world as it might have been if World War Two turned otherwise. And not simply the victory of Hitler's Germany, a easy topic when faced with the massive documentation produced by the thousand year Reich-to-be and Speer's projects under the dictator's guidance. But, the internal divisions inside the two alliances are largely showed and used by authors, like in The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. He told how Nazi Germany and Japan would diverge their ways during the occupation of Northern America... in a fake brotherhood.

On the science-fiction market that has been producing a lot for so long (understand in France: before "adult" and "serious" publishers saw the cultural and financial interest), the cover is a weapon to catch the reader vulnerable in the middle of new book towers and juxtaposed titles on entire walls.

To shock to catch an eye. The postage stamp can help.

(amazon.co.uk)

In 2004, the one cent green of the 1934 National Parcs series was used cancel with a Nazi swastika on Philip Roth's novel cover, The Plot Against America. The story used the anecdot that a Republican senator had proposed to aviator Charles Lindbergh to enter the race to the 1940 presidential election, when the United States were in their isolationist period.

The actual stamp earn alone a specialised collection: useful denomination, philatelic minisheet at the 1934 Trans-Mississippi exhibition, and, with this cover, a imaginary fancy cancel.

(amazon.co.uk)

In 1978, the first publisher of SS-GB by Len Deighton went right to the thing: Hitler profile on a British-like stamp ("POSTAGE REVENUE", value in pence, cancel in London).

The United Kingdom lost the Battle of England in 1940-1941. Late 1941, a detective loyal to Scotland Yard, but obviously doubting of the new power, found secrets from a simple criminal investigation. A storyline that will infant Robert Harris' Fatherland in 1992 and whose first cover was shocking too, but not in a philatelic manner.

Note : new label with this article. "Cinderella" as in the collection of fictive stamps and other stamp-like labels.

Sweet pea and Braille

2009-04-30T23:57:00.000-07:00

This 2008 stamp should be the model for all postal operators and philatelic agents.

The sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus), Finland, 27 February 2008.

If you watch carefully this scan (or check the WNS reference), you can see the Braille dots that I imagine recall the stamp denomination...

... yes, without any reference to Louis Braille, or a blind-care association. Like that.

When does the generalisation begin? At least in countries where sending a cécogramme is not free of charge.

On tracks

2009-04-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

In 2008, the rack train between Königswinter and the summit of Drachenfels celebrated its one hundred and twenty-five years.

Stamp created by Lutz Menze.

In Helsinki, since 1999, the tramway network has been using low-floor vehicles like the one pictured on this 2007 stamp.

From a stamp series about public transportation.

Make room

2009-04-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

In May, collectors of France will need more room with thirty nine new stamps.

4 May, Europa issue: French Space Agency CNES's illustrator, David Ducros, propose a view of Saturn and one of an exoplanet. He already produced a stamp in 2007 for the fifty years of human conquest of space.

These two 0.70 euro stamps will be the first Europa issue in the 20 gram postal rate to the European Union countries since 2006, when this rate diverged from the national rate.

Wednesday 13 May, first days at the Jardin d'acclimation, typical place now for stamp collecting families with children and sun bathering in green nature. But, this May will see a change in clients: no Happy Birthday issue will a youth literature topic. A new sort of booklet will be issued with eight postcard-like picture stamps with never changing monuments of France. The rate will be "Monde 20 g" (World 20 grams).

The Holidays booklet continues its chromatical journey, but, this year, I will not follow: how RED it is! A little artificially saturated, no? The booklet - unfortunately - goes to fourteen stamps, including six mini-stamps. I will regret the "Blue" and "Green" booklets, where another colors gave a more relaxed atmosphere from pictures more "as it is". Tennis fans will like two of those stamps.

18 May. Let's blink on the service stamps for the Council of Europe whose headquarters are in Strasbourg. They are not supposed to be used on French mail ^^... They will sell easily because one of them has got the logotype of the sixty year old institution.

18 May. The town of Chaumont chose its stamp after a design competition: no monument, no sightseeing. You have to look for the poster printing to understand why Frank Vriens' project was chosen. The stamp will be issued during the first week of the twentieth International Poster and Graphism Festival.

On 25 May, a little tour to the protestants with a five hundred anniversary stamp on Jean Calvin.

The Club philatélique de l'Élysée get two first days of sale and eleven new stamps for its first show at the Pavillon Gabriel, right next to the Élysée Presidential Palace.

First, a-no-ther map of the Mediterranean Sea for the Euromed Postal conference. It is a topical meeting of the Euromediterranean Partnership, boosted last July 2008 into the Union for the Mediterranean (the one with the stamp that makes waters go up). The first conference was organized by La Poste in July 2007 (autopromotion?), the second in Alexandria, Egypt on 24 and 25 May 2009. That is the meaning of the rays of light refering to the lighthouse of Alexandria. This stamp surely pleases people outside the philatelic range, but it made the Black Sea, the Red Sea and the Atlantic Ocean disappeared... Now, this time, the stamp that makes water go down!

The big issue will be a chocolate bar though. It smells like chocolate. Pierre-André Cousin illustrated the ten bits with illustration like sculpted on chocolate bar. But they are ten stamps telling the story of cacao from South America to Bayonne, France in 1609.

Even without the odor, the Chocolate minisheet is to be seen for its design... Let's hope Phil@poste will not begin to sell chocolate bar looking like the stamps in post offices (the price will be awful). On the opposite, I bet that the Club philatélique de l'Élysée will certainly find a Parisian chocolatier to imitate the minisheet and offer a tasting to a Presidential neighbour passing by.

The rest of May issue interest me not, but Chaumont if I was interested in poster art.

What's left?

2009-04-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

Nothing? And I am not talking of my mania of the week: floating suits in competitite swimming.

The postal free rate inside Andorra may have disappeared believing Mai 2009 issue of Timbres magazine. To say it, it copied/pasted (red link included on the monthly's website) the introduction of the Wikipedia in French's article. And add the part of the disappearance without giving any references: informations from the two postal operators in the Pyrenean principality (Correos and La Poste) or their agreement with the government?

I tried to explore the website of the latter, in catalan, without any reference on the postal system late 2008, beginning of 2009. Only thing on Spanish press website: Correos employees in Andorra went on strike to be paid like their colleagues in Spain. Was it the cause of the postal rate change? Was this the case of La Poste's employees too?

First day of sale for La France comme j'aime (reminder). Suprise for Montpellier on the official website: 8.30am-12pm at the Préfecture post office... No public room... while there are 1'500 people massing from regions of France to Antigone swimming pool for France Swimming Championships : massive business opportunity and many public rooms available all around.

This morning, around 10am, five persons were waiting in line at the office's shop. A little table for the first day cancel. One other for an association proposing their former souvenirs.

Sad first day party. Too much stamps? Not enough time to prepare for the local association? But, what were the motivations of other associations in Languedoc-Roussillon then?

But, some things are still there: touristic souvenirs on stamps. On 14 May 2009, foreign tourists in France will be able to buy a eigh stamp booklet entitled La France en timbres Post Images of France, with a cover in English, Spanish, German and Japanese.

Parisian newspaper and postcard stands will be happy.

Are you looking for a new specialised collection?

2009-04-19T06:04:00.000-07:00

Are you fed up of your own country's definitive series, classic, contemporary, even the colonial ones? Know that foreign countries can be interesting too.

Adrian proposed a little tour of Europe, with the Flowers of Germany, for example.

The Plate Number Coil Collectors Club (PNC³) listed the different forms of sale of the United States Forever stamp (reminder).

On the side of the inexhaustible Machin, the incredible Douglas Myall informed that the Royal Mail put a tiny difference in the different forms of sale, that is of printing and making, of the new non-denominated stamps with the new security features. A letter changes everything: to your magnifyer! And do not forget the rest.

27 April 2009 : to help you with the new Machins, the MachinManiacals summarized what is known about the stamps from booklets.

RDP signatories for 2009

2009-04-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

The white smoke finally appeared at the top of chimney, in Albion, where the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists Board of Election was meeting. The four chosen will sign the parchment, one of many anglo-saxon philatelic awards at the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain, on 7 July 2009, in Manchester.

All are brilliant philatelists.

British John Sussex participated to the organisation of numerous national and international exhibitions. One of these volunteers, generous of their time, always necessary. He is one sponsor of the Festival of stamps that will take place in London in May 2010.

Australian Geoffrey Neil Kellow is an important author that made Stanley Gibbons updated its catalogues after his publications on the stamps of Australian States. But, he is a biliophile and librarian too. In 2006, when the Australian Philatelic Federation awarded him with the Australian Philatelic Order, he was working on the index numerisation and search engine of important Australian societies' libraries. To bequeathed his books do not suffice: there are to be little hands to make them tools available easily for decades afterwards.

Barbara R. Mueller of the United States has not ceased to write and help publishing philatelic periodicals in her country. To such a state that her pairs were out of personal awards, so that the United States Stamp Society created an award in her name given to the author of the best article published in The American Philatelist, the American Philatelic Society's magazine.

Finally, a British francophile: George Barker. A foreign corresponding member of the Académie de philatélie, he get the pleasure of studying France's 1900 definitive triology (Blanc, Mouchon, Merson series) and of the Sabine. Some French African colonies interest them too. And, patriot (?), even Elizabeth II photographed by Dorothy Wilding attracts his eyes.

Congratulations.

Maternity in Spain

2009-04-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Because I seldom follow the social calendar: a subject on maternity, illustrated by J. Carrero (difficult to retrieve his first name on Google).

This stamp of Spain was the non religious Christmas stamp, issued by Correos in 2008. The christian stamp showed three santons from a Nativity scene designed by Naplese artists for two sons of King Charles III.

I have not practice Spanish philately very often, outside a journey to Barcelona. It seems that adhesive issues have expanded: look at the absence of paper threads along the right side stamp.

In Spain, these adhesive stamps are sold in booklet of twenty. But their backing paper is perforated in line so that the stamp can be isolated. It permitted me to buy only one adhesive stamp at the philatelic office in Barcelona. Is this done at regular post office too?

Tutti frutti

2009-04-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

To read British monthly Stamp Magazine's first pages (news and most expensive advertisment places) is always a pleasure for the curious one. Here is a little part of what I discover with the May 2009 pages.

As soon as the second page, the famous commercial, judged as anti-women dignity, from the Monaco Postage Stamp Issuing Office, in its English version: "Our collection, will suit you perfectly" while the French one said: "Soyez affranchis, offrez-vous une nouvelle collection" (Be franked/liberated, offer yourself a new collection). This campaign has a important merit compared to its predecessors: it makes blogging.

Page 7, Prestige Philately of Melbourne used one of its two paid pages to show only one lot of its 13 June 2009 sale: a printed project of the Chalon effigy stamp for Queensland, extracted from Bernie Manning's collection. Beautiful.

Page 9 is more topical... Gibraltar put the faces of Queen Elizabeth II's grand-children on 42 pence stamps while Åland, page 10, asked former President of Finland and Nobel Price of Peace, Martti Ahtisaari, to design a stamp.

But the sensation is printed on page 10. A radioactive cover! Found in the ruins of a bank in Hiroshima in August 1945. Between 6 and 10 May in Essen, it will be exhibited at IBRA'09, the international and national German exhibition, inside its lead and security glass coffer.

Opposite it, page 11, the IBRA'09 official auction house, Felzmann, bought the ad page to show a hand of British Empire lots from its sales.

Page 13 concluded this news part with a second Monaco commercial. No, the model did not finish losing its stamp dress. Here, that is not sale for collector, it is serious thing for philatelist (or princes): to announced with the Club of Monte-Carlo the prestige exhibit Monacophil 2009, between 4 and 6 December 2009. Two advertisments worlds apart for two collections and two publics worlds apart too?

for amateurs of topical, Adrian Keppel told the history of France with 1966-1973 Albert Decaris' stamp series. For amateurs of rarities, Bob Odenweller chose sixteen pieces in William H. Gross' United States collection.

Frenchs' Marianne still useful, not yet withdrawn

2009-04-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

If you were in Paris (and unable to visit the Eiffel Tower because of the strike) and wanted to send a postcard or a letter to friends inside the European Union or in Switzerland, you could use Nicolas' Marianne in dark blue (nicknames "Blue Europe" by Phil@poste) or, recently, had been able to lick and stick the Avignon Palace of Popes stamp.

If you search the internet, at the Boutique du timbre of Phil@poste, you can find Marianne des Français stamps at 0.70 euro dark green, issued at a time when this rate was for the 50-100 gram economic nationwide mail (2006-2008, now 0.73 euro).

However, JVC philatélie and Blog philatélie announced the withdrawal of many Marianne des Français value, including this one, on 20 February 2009. My order was sent late March and arrived in the first day of April. Here is a copy of the website screen made today, Thursday 9 April 2009.

Were there understantable difficulties to follow on a daily basis the acts of Phil@poste? Error when consulting the website? Or, not an error, but the stamps reappeared after some days of withdrawal when the stock was better accounted and to important not be transform into good money? [10 April 2009 : Visibly none of the above by an answer of Dominique on the Blog philatélie. An answer that may emphasize on the need for philatelists to be more independent from La Poste to answer the following question: ]

What is now a withdrawal date?
- the one of the general sale: no more this stamp at post offices and Phil@poste shops?
- the one of all possible sales by one of La Poste's constituents?

Already the authors of the Dallay+Rousso=Maury stamp catalogue of France printed this information in tiny characters, if they have to put many dates.

Guernsey stamps on novel cover

2009-04-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

The philatelic eye never sleeps in order to catch every perforated piece of paper.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a epistolary novel by Mary Ann Shaffer et Annie Barrows. The title was translated in French as Le Cercle littéraire des amateurs d'épluchures de patates [The Literary Circle of Potato Peelings Amateurs].

Action took place in the Channel island of Guernsey, occupied by the German army, in the first half of the 1940s. Rationing certainly forced the use of potato peelings to make pies.

(amazon.co.uk)

The paperback edition's cover presented a piece of an enveloppe franked with two stamps issued then to face the lack of postage stamps of the United Kingdom. Figuring the coat of arms of the Duchy of Normandy, they were issued under the authority of the States of Guernsey. Where as the Stanley Gibbons gives them different designers and printers, the first stamps of the States of Jersey were identical, but of course the island's name.

Stamps are the one penny red and the two pence and a half marine blue.

One of amazon.co.uk page let you zoom on the cover and decipher the cancel date: on 12 April 1944 in Saint Martin, one of the parishes.

This use is historically correct (not judging the color shades and the postal rate): the one penny was circulating since February 1941 and the two pence and a half was issued on 12 April 1944.

(amazon.fr)

Here is the French edition that caught my eye yesterday afternoon. It is common to the English hard cover edition.

Stamps were modified: half penny green and one penny red, cancelled on 16 July 1947.

Guernsey was liberated with the surrender of German soldiers in the morning of the 9 May 1945. How much time were these war occupation stamps used? Decided by the local authority of this Crown Dependencies, they may have lasted, but my current personal ressources prevent me to conclude.

The search begins (9 April 2009) :

Ian Billings, on the Virtual Stamp Club, completes my Commonwealth & British Empire Stamps with another Stanley Gibbons catalogue, the one on the Channel Islands, which indicates a use until 13 April 1946. The stamps could not have been used in 1947.

He expressed doubts on the datestamp too: historically, it was made by a machine in combinaison with a message or wavy lines cancellation, not applied by hand like the cover might suggest. Even like this, he said that would certainly not use with a letter in the bottom part (here a M).

Thank you, Ian.

Anecdote read in the stamp catalogue: printings were done on white paper, but two during Spring 1942 (one for the half penny and one for the one penny). French bank note paper was used.

Turkish stamp cancelled and completed by meter

2009-04-06T23:34:00.000-07:00

This letter was sent from Turkey to France on 24 March 2009. It was franked by a stamp about İzmir of sixty kuruş. Over it, a machine stamp was printed as cancellation and as a twenty-five kuruş franking.

Let's remind that, after 1 January 2009, only the new lira and its "yeni kuruş" (nouveaux kuruş) are circulating in Turkey, after a January 2005 to December 2008 transition with the ancient lira. The conversion was a division per one million, i.e. erase six zeros. Before, the franking would have been of 850 000 liras.

On the Turkey's PTT website in English, the postage rate tables indicates the above 85 kuruş for a less 20 gram letter to foreign countries, around 0.40 euro.

Now, was it posted in Çorlu or in Tekirdağ? As the latter gives its name to their common province, the datestamp must mean "Çorlu, in the province of Tekirdağ".

Quiet April in France

2009-04-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

After all, once you forget the two hundreds forty "added value stamps" from our regions, the French philatelic April will be very quiet.

French Caribbean writer and policitian Aimé Césaire merited a postage stamp. It will be issued on 21 April 2009 after a first day of sale in Fort-de-France, Martinique and at the Secretary for the Oversea in Paris, on the day he died one year ago.

The copied/pasted photograph shows a man of conviction... but does it invite to discover his convitions, his writings?

The following week-end will be a Stamp Festival bis: around eighty cities are listed as first day of sales in Timbres magazine (the magazine issued its #100 issue, next April will be the tenth birthday).

The map of the eighty cities: would it be a cartography of the philatelic associative activity? of the proximity network of Phil@poste? of the last philatelic counter postmen waiting to be closed? of the regional newspaper journalists waiting for something new to print?

At least, for the two twelve stamp booklets, do they choose Guy Coda. May that excuse some excess?

Oh... my devil's advocate suit is inspiring me again: in fact, the two hundreds and forty stamps at 0.23 euro the right to buy them, it is to pay a good artist for the booklets.

King George VI and Maitland, South Australia

2009-04-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

Neither a maximum card, nor a first day of issue for the stamp. Simply a card inspired by King George VI:

In civil suit wearing the ribbons of his numerous decorations, the white haired King is neigboured by a stamp of Australia figuring his effigy. This 2 pence purple was issued on 4 December 1944 and designed by F.D. Manley from the same effigy in uniform as the first series of the reign in 1937.

Among many homonyms, the Maitland of the 13 August 1948 cancel, is located in South Australia.

The picture reproduced by editor Photochron is one of the many by Dorothy Wilding. It was taken for the Silver Anniversary of King George and Queen Elizabeth in 1948.

Silver anniversary that was the occasion of a stamp issue in the United Kingdom, designed from two photographs in profile of the couple. George VI profile reminds the Australia seven and a half pence issued in 1951.

To launch a study about British royal effigies on stamps...

Security Machin: the Deconstruction begins

2009-03-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

Philatelists on the other side of the Channel began the precise study of the new Machin stamps, the one with the new secutiry measures to avoid their reuse.

The trained eyes of Ian Billings has already discovered variations/errors/types (?)es of these young stamps.

Inside the Design Classics commemorative booklet, he remarked the cutting in two of the security slits. Printed by Walsall. In sheets and by De La Rue, the slits are in two semi-ovals (or two "cuts" in Billings' text).

Now, he can add that the gap is wider on the definitive booklet stamps, issued 31 March 2009.

Moreover, he makes us aware of a second difference that isolate stamps from the commemorative booklet: these Machins got simulated rounded teeth when United Kingdom's adhesive stamps got horizontal teeth.

I let to Machin Mania the presentation of printing cylinders and marginal mentions on stamp sheets. But, I understood there these "dots"/"no dots" thing I heard during my London season.

Finally, the great specialist, Douglas Myall, aka Deegam, proposed two new terms adapted to these new stamps in his Deegam Report #80. He placed them in the public domain to help others describe the stamps. Here they are thank to Machin Mania:

OFNP/PSA: non phosphor neither fluorescent paper / P for the PVAl water soluble layer ; S for self adhesive and A for acrylic adhesive. And because the PVAl was removed to ensure that uncancelled used stamps will not be used again:

OFNP/SA.

The Complete Deegam Machin Handbook lists all known types and variations of the Machin stamps. It is available on cd-rom for thirty nine pounds sterling, updated with the Deegam Reports.

Overseas news

2009-03-29T23:37:00.000-07:00

With a dozen or so stamps issued each year, the Mayotte General Council and its philatelic commission present the French overseas collectivity. A place whose inhabitants chose yesterday, Sunday 29 March 2009, the statute of a complete French département.

This philatelic program shows mainly fauna, flora and the islands' landscapes. The local culture and traditions constitute the second part while institutions and public personalities conclude the list.

In 2011, at the end of the departmentalisation process, will the philatelic autonomy disappear? A common French département can not issue its own stamp. Mayotte's postal service is operated by the oversea service of La Poste.

In Tromelin island, from 27 October to 1 December 2008, an archeologic expedition took place, directed by Max Guérout. As originary from Béziers, he has the privilege of an article in Midi Libre, the regional newspaper, this Monday 30 Mars 2009. The goal of the expedition was to retrieve traces of the L'Utile ship, lost there in 1761. In 2006, the precedent team found traces of habitations from the slaves who were in the ship's cargo.

To know more: the Research Group in Naval Archeology manages a website on Tromelin with a daily blog of the mission. Photographs help to forget the "Iced Saints" and other quick rains of Metropolitan March.

Tromelin and its history, future topics on French Southern and Antartic Lands?

Finally, on the Antilles side: I remember that the postal director in Saint-Martin or Saint-Barthelémy told a French philatelic magazine about stamp issues by late 2007, the year these two islands were separated from Guadeloupe and became two French oversea collectivities. No news since?

And, of course, I can not find the magazine issue.

"Saving Private Phil@poste"

2009-03-29T02:10:00.001-07:00

Today, I summarize the main problematic of the article in French for the foreign readers.

Pierre Jullien is a French journalist. He regularly works for Le Monde and writes articles for Timbres magazine. He has a passion for the philately and the places of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.

Yesterday, due to comments about the 240 and more stamp issue next April 2009 in France, he posted a call to "save private Phil@poste".

To the readers not used to the French postal system. During these 2000s, La Poste group was reorganized into services. Phil@poste is in charge of philatelic productions. The post office service is in charge of the profitability of post offices and accessibility of postal services every where. The mail service operates the sorting and distributing of the mail.

It seems that the philatelic inflation by Phil@poste in search of new clients and non used on mail stamp collectors is caused by the mail service.

Explanation: the services are now independent and are selling their services to one another. Post offices now sold DVD movie sponsored by La Poste, books, postcards, etc. because part of the income get to Phil@poste for payment of the postage stamp production and to the mail service for operation of the main postal service.

But, when Phil@poste lose part of its income to the post offices when they sale themselves the stamps. That's why it operated its own webshop and personalised overpriced stamp service: that is money that won't leave Phil@poste's pockets.

But, when used on mail, Phil@poste has to give its part to the mail service. Conclusion: Phil@poste needs collectors or one-time stamp buyers to keep unused the stamps they get. By Pierre Jullien, that is the story behing the 240 stamp issue with a pre-personalised 23 eurocent premium on each stamp.

Second explanation: the mail service has been operating since December 2008 a philatelic service on the web. Montimbrenligne permits the sender to order and print directly a postage mark on a cover or a sticker.

No queuing at a post office for the sender. No money to give back to the post office and the philatelic services for the mail service.

Worse case scenario for Phil@poste: senders massivelly adopts the Mail service's franking system. I can imagine this service would compete for the philatelic program decided by the government. The Mail service proposed 200 designs to illustrate your postage mark: simple pictures, nothing artistic. But, since everything is on the web, commemorative or temporary illustrations could be proposed, designed by the same reknown artists as postage stamps or new ones looking for occasion.

And, in the "green" communicating era we are living, these service is in the good spot: the final user pays everything that is needed for its satisfaction because he is using its own paper and its own ink. Contrary to postage stamp use for which the cost of production is not paid by the sender, but by Phil@poste.

And the mail service don't have to care about running a printing plant or please collectors.

I advice you to follow how philatelic services are operating in country where the postal operator splitted its services.

Attraction to the sheet margins of France

2009-03-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

The duel was concluded by Nicolas: despite its human, that is financial, cost to Phil@poste, there has to be engraved postage stamps printed in intaglio in France's philatelic program. With a number and a quality of issues sufficient to please the collectors-electors-clients.

How Phil@poste can make profitable this upper order and please the down buyers?

To call known engravers. No problem in France where these artists sign their stamps and are known and interviewed by regular collectors. For the Avignon palace of Popes stamp, Martin Mörck's touch is a quality proof for mixed printing in offset and intaglio.

Let's put the perforations to the right of the sheet. Reduce the left margin and we have a large right margin, large enough to include engraved portraits of the popes who lived in Avignon.

Sale potential: ten stamps with their margin.

Plus the beautiful postage amateurs who were missing commemorative stamps for the European Union and Switzerland.

But, some well placed color markers can suffice. They are, apparently, a necessity for the printers and the quality controllers at Phil@poste Boulazac, the French postal printing plant near Périgueux.

On the Menton stamp by Ève Luquet, the margin is pretty with these pastels: yellow, pink, clear blue for the sea, clearer to the sky...

Sale potential: two to three margin stamps.

Marketing can - sometimes - be useful, inspired and discreet. That is the France I like.