Week #2016.37 on SébPhilatélie

British magazines and a good news for the philatelist of Southern France!

Tuesday 13 September: What stamp is the first of Gibraltar?
A read back into the game proposed by Richard Garcia in Gibbons Stamp Monthly August 2016 issue: among four competitors, which one is the first stamp of Gibraltar?

Not an easy question between the first stamps sold and postally used from Gibraltar to Spain, the British ones finally used there on international mail, fiscal ones in local Spanish currency, and finally the first catalogued ones (British Victorian overprinted).

And I wonder why not add the first ones that didn't look like a British stamps: the pictorial issue of 1930? And why does Yvert et Tellier continue to think the first stamp of France is the number 3 in its catalogue???

Wednesday 14 September: a scandalous issue for Stamp Magazine.
The October 2016 issue of British Stamp Magazine (published mid-September) turns around the topic of scandals... voluntarily or not.

This cover will get a lot of reader's comments I bet (Stamp Magazine website).

In the newspages old scandalous "uncrowned king" Edward VIII get his commemorative issue in form of a Postal Museum overprinted Post & Go printed on demand stamps. New scandal when John Crace imagined, with a lot of acid and caustic soda, the Royal Mail issuess after the Brexit referendum... with a certain 350 million pound bus on stamp premium...

It's very rare that politic news end into a general philatelic magazines. Generally, when a blogger is too close to the red line, readers doesn't appreciate.

Possible unvoluntary scandal: a Third Reich stamp on cover to announce John Winchester's article on the centenary of tanks??? In the article, and in a position of combat, the Canadian engraved 1942 stamp or the British Day D 1994 one would have avoided some comments I'm sure.

Next episode: November to January Reader's Letters in the same publication.

Sunday 18 September: Montpellier to host France's national exhibition in June 2019!
Earlier this week the Association philatélique de Montpellier announced that the Federation of French Philatelic Associations accepted its candidature to host the national exhibition, championship and federal congress in June 2019.

The picture shown with the good news picturing the support of the Métropole of Montpellier and the public company managing the venue, Montpellier Events (Association philatélique montpelliéraine).

The venue will be Montpellier Exhibition Park, in nearby Pérols. A place more and more connected to the city center and incoming ways: line 3 of tramway (the beaches are nearby), airport is in the neighbour, the A9 highway and the speedways for the ones who wish to check the nearby wineyards (including the new Protected Designation of Origin - AOC - of Pic Saint-Loup north of Montpellier).

The Saturday 8 to Monday 10 (Pentecôte Bank Holiday in France) event will take place just after Stockholmia, the celebration of the 150 years of the Royal Philatelic Society London.