Every year, the week-end between All Saints Day and Armistice Day, the French philatelic traders' associations (CNEP) organised the Autumn Stamp Show in Paris, one of the main salons of France along its Spring show and the Federation's national exhibition.
Last week-end, from Thursday 5th and Sunday 8th, the 2015 edition showed philatelic officials and local authorities inaugurate the event, as told by CNEP President François Farcigny.
With his blog Philatélie au quotidien, Journalist Pierre Jullien is your Bottin mondain to the French philatelic world:
- pictures on stamp artists present to meet collectors and sign their stamps and souvenirs : here, there, and here, and will continue to report these artists' activities all year long ;
- pictures of Timbres Magazine redaction with editor-in-chief/documentary director Gauthier Toulemonde signing his travel book and asking philatelic celebs and visitors "what's the stamp that change their collection?" Mr. Toulemonde's videos can be watched again thanks to a youTube page started last Summer. British readers may be interested in the interviews filmed at Spink, London some years ago.
Pierre Jullien emphasized on three major events of this year's show:
- the French philatelic service Director's conference on what his service will do for French philately in 2016 - other than issuing a huge lot of stamps (see this blog last Sunday) ;
- before the show the election by the philatelic celebs of the Grand Prize of the Philatelic Art among stamps of the year of France, with categories for the overseas collectivities and the invited country Canada. Generally quite conservative: intaglio.
And finally the many tributes to illustrator Marc Taraskoff who died last March. Book cover and newspaper illustrator before becoming a stamp artist and the artistic consultant to Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon philatelic service. His French stamps can be viewed on the Phil-Ouest.com database.
On the visitors side, the webmaster of News du phospho seems to think every year the same drama: at the federal congress complaints on the number of stamps issued, but five months later, forty five minute queuing on chairs made available by Phil@poste (!) to buy the many new stamps issued especially at the stamp show...
But he reminds readers of the first steps of Spink as a catalogue editor after the British auction house bought the French catalogue Maury-Dallay-Cérès. Like me, he hopes for a brand new mastermind 2017 edition... before a translation in English?
Finally, the French philatelic pond gets to live a cyclic event as two philatelic experts decided to shake the market by launching last October a free option in their expertise: the edition of a free pdf certificate with every expertise they are ordered to do. The idea is that a buyer can consult the database to confirm the stamp and certificate are legitimate.
Messieurs Calves (son of the one who signed) and Jacquart are happy of the nine thousands visitors they get to talk with in four days. Their objective is to make collectors understand the importance and the little cost of expertizing if the whole Philatelic Frog community wants to cleanse the market from false and fraudulent stamps, ignorant or dishonest dealers.
A cycle that needs to be permanent because the last offensive of March 2009: three articles or interviews in Timbres magazine, did not seem successfull enough.
In my humble opinion, I just hope that their activitism might end the expert signature on the back of stamps as a sure way of certifying them... as God writing Commandments on a stone any engraver could wish to improve.
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