Weeks #2017.29 and 30 on SébPhilatélie

Tuesday 18 July: Latin America specialist Brian Moorhouse passed away.
On Saturday 15 July Brian Moorhouse died. He was a British dealer, expert and philatelist specialised in the Latin American continent and the Caribbean from the 19th century to the 1940s.

Christopher Colombus, the appropriate logotype of Brian Moorhouse's web shop.

Saturday 22 July: On new stamps of France: sculptures and gastron... Mediterranean nature.

A personal view on two issues - the EuroMed Postal of July and the Auguste Rodin commemorative of September - compared to former issues of France on the same topics or how Jersey Stamps treated nature through the bicentenary of the kaleidoscope.

Monday 24 July: Two articles on the economic margins of France.

Two articles in French were recently published on the web.

On Sunday 23 July, on La Marcophilie navale blog, Jean-Michel Bergougniou told the two first fishing campaigns (1981-1982) around the Kerguelen Islands, in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, through mail and stamps.

The context was the tensions between French fishing companies, Newfoundland and Norway. The austral summer 1980-1981 campaign studied and experimented the zone. The next one brought back fish. For example the reader can follow Zélande 2 from France to the Austral Ocean via the Suez Canal.

 

A 25 rouble specimen sold in 2016 on CGB.fr website.

On Numismag, a coin and banknote collection news website, research articles are proposed too. Since Wednesday 19 July you can learn about the unissued Russian rouble banknotes of the Banque de l'Indo-Chine written after the author consulted the bank's archives, now in possession of Crédit agricole SA.

After the First World War Central and Eastern European countries were a geopolitical mess. In Siberia - the Asian parts of Russia - too: the British and French were helping the fight against the Bolcheviks... And it wasn't beautiful: French general Maurice Janin was sent to command the Czeckoslavak Legion that was in Russia at the time... and it seems it ended participating in the demise of a White Russian leader in Omsk.

Money was a problem in Civil War Russia: Imperial roubles still printed by the Bolcheviks were competing in the hands of the people with the Kerenski overturned government new roubles... In Omsk the White Russian authority was considering a sovereign issue of notes.

Like the British in Arkhangelsk, the French government wished to reassure the population with whom their military would have to trade. The Banque de l'Indo-Chine was ordered to open an agency in Vladivostock and issue banknotes in rouble, exchangeable in French francs (1 rouble for 60 centimes).

In 1919 the American Banknote Company was ordered to design and print the notes. But the military and political contingencies in Omsk delayed their issue. In the end they were destroyed in May 1920 in New York... but for specimen series that have been circulating on the market or that are stored in the Banque de l'Indo-Chine archives.

Thursday 27 July: Pre-UPU mail travel with James Van der Linden.
Thank to Vaccari bookshop I succeeded to find Belgian postal historian James Van der Linden's book - or collection - entitled Four Important Exchange Offices, published by La Marque postale in 2016.

The four main centers of the 19th century postal networks progressively established by European posts were, from West to East, Panama, Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), Trieste and Suez.

Collectors will enjoy the 80 letters, postal historians the explanation on rates and marks, the curious one - me - the text putting all this in context.

Thanks to the author to help me on my slow way on 19th century postal history.

Weeks #2017.27 and 28 on SébPhilatélie

Saturday 8 July: Difficulties with fiscal stamps for Malians in Algeria.
On 21 April 2017 MaliActu.net news website published a plea from Malian citizens living and working in neighbouring Algeria.

A 500 CFA franc fiscal stamp of Mali (via MaliActu.net).

The Embassy in Algiers hadn't had stamps for months and its personnel refused to explain the causes, while Algiers and Bamako are weekly connected by flights.

Tuesday 11 July: A philatelic month.

With my recent dive in Tweeter to discover the social network tool, here are some news I gathered there.

In London:

At the general assembly on Thursday 22 June,  members of the Royal Philatelic Society London elected Belgian postal historian Patrick Maselis as its new President. ont élu le Belge Patrick Maselis président de l'association londonienne.

Already President of the Club of Monte Carlo which organised Monacophil and of the Royal Academy of Philately of Belgium, whose website proposed a complete biography.

Collectors of Belgian personalised stamps who are members of the RPSL will be thrilled :)

In Oaxaca, Mexico:
The MUFI (its Twitter account) celebrated its birthday at the same time as the philatelic exhibition on the seas and their fauna. Medias and institutions of Oaxaca broadcasted both events.

Saturday 1st July, Lisbeth Mejla of newspaper El Impartial reported her visit of the museum's library, rich with studies by Mexican philatelists and old editions of famous catalogues.

Presentation of the MUFI by Fundation Alfredo Harp Helú, posted Friday 7 July 2017 on youTube. 

And since Friday 7, Fundation Alfredo Harp Helú is proposing a video about the museum, its permanent collections, its activities for the children, its library.

In Algeria:
Thursday 6 July, in his weekly philatelic column in El Watan, Arslan Selmane wrote down his questions about the last commemorative minisheet by the Algerian Post. It is issued the same week end alongside its five separate stamps about Algerian battles against the French invasion, occupation and colonisation of the country from 1830 to 1962.

The questionable minisheet, issued Saturday 8 July 2017 (via the forum PhilatélieDz).

To summarize: apart from difficult-to-watch paintings on stamps, how will thematical philatelist exhibit the minisheet whereas there are events of two different periods, a variety of locations and war actors and strategies.

Selmane is continuing his enlighted criticism of Algeria's 2017 stamp program, in which minisheets are numerous.

French medias haven't seemed to notice the issue... Surely a good thing for public appeasement. Not for a serious look on French history, and for philately.

The final part of the article in French are proposition of magazines for the Summer, including for parents (and grand-parents) how to manage video games with their children.

Friday 14 July: a 12th Indonesia birthday for Postcrossing.
Bastille Day is Postcrossing Day too!

The 3 Indonesian stamps: travel through postcards with open computer windows to the world (1) of monuments (2) and cultures (3).

The written postcard exchange website is honored by the Indonesian post with a triptyc because a Postcrossing event will be organised during the international exhibition in Bandung (3-7 August).

Of course The Sebphilately Postcrossing catalogue was updated accordingly.

Saturday 15 July: a new stamp for Liverpool.
In his latest issue on contemporary architecture Royal Mail added one stamp about the city of Liverpool, one of the specialities of Séb.

The new façade of the Everyman Theater in Liverpool... If the picture went more to the left, another architecture marvel would appear, but it was already put on a stamp in 1969 (Royal Mail).

The Everyman Theater, opened 1964, was completely rebuilt between 2011 and 2014. Its new front presents pictures of Liverpuldians.

The theater is located on the northern part of Hope Street, a touristic promenade of Liverpool by itself. You will find the two cathedrals at both ends (the Anglican to the South, the Catholic next to the Everyman), sculptures and many important place of concerts and plays, including musical pubs.

Week #2017.13 on SébPhilatélie

Tuesday 28 March: the many forms of decimalisation in the Commonwealth.
From the creation of the Australian dollar philatelically commemorated last year to a three-time reissued Cayman Islands definitive series in 1969 described by Moel Cavenhill in the February issue of Gibbons Stamp Monthly, many former British colonies kept the ternary monetary system until the sixties and seventies.

The "C-Day" second version of Cayman Islands decimalisation series: 8th September 1969 was the day the Jamaican dollar replaced the Jamaican pound/shilling/pence (via colnect.com).

A change that didn't go smoothly if one looks "outside the scope of the catalogue" for 1961 Pakistan with the numerous local oveprints presented by Mike J. Roberts at the Royal Philatelic Society London earlier in March.

Thursday 30 March: postal dragon in a French comics.
How to remind the e-generation that postal service still exist and are useful: show them in what they read.

Excerpt of the first and second page of  L'Année du dragon, last tome in the Mélusine series (Dupuis Editions).

On 29 March, weekly French and Belgian comics magazine Spirou is pre-publishing by episode the 35th tome of Mélusine, the stories of a young apprentice witch ; on general sale on 5 May.

In L'Année du dragon (The Year of the Dragon), all the dragons disappeared and the magical world is put to an economic stop: no more transportation of mail and packages for a start.

Saturday 1 April: Liberty, Equality, Salmonity.
Not good times for pranks after many politicians' acts in 2016-2017, so let's eat the fishes instead.

A postal sushi postal of the Raw Fish Republic (Florent Chavouet's blog).

From 2010 to 2012 a French illustrator created almost 200 play on words and puzzle based on sushis.

Sunday 2 April: Iain Stevenson RIP.
Sad news: one month ago, edition specialist and philatelist Iain Stevenson died in England. A former professional editor who became university teacher in 1999, he was a specialist of telegraph stamps, postal stationery, North Borneo and Canada.

Stevenson has a connection with Montpellier, France where I live. He studied geography there in the 1970s, wrote on the Scots College (Collège des Écossais) established by Patrick Geddes in the 1920s, and exhibited his collection of Montpellier postmarks at the French Académie de philatélie's event at the Royal Philatelic Society London last November.

The article in French gives many links to retrieve parts of his publications and exhibits. An eulogy was published by the University College London, followed by tributes from his colleagues, students and readers.

Stamp collectors at NATO headquarters

On Wednesday 26 October 2016 the Belgian post (bpost) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) celebrated the new buildings of the Western military alliance headquarters, set in Brussels since December 1966.

The "European one point" stamp, sold in illustrated minisheets of five (bpost webshop).

The postal operator issued a five stamp minisheet by Kris Maes representing the principal front of the new headquarters, with the circle of member states flags - Belgium, the Unites States, the United Kingdom and Turkey well placed in the foreground and the alphabetic order (and the needs of the current situation in the Middle East?).

The first day of sale is reported by NATO on its youTube page. First are the stamps printed and checked by employees of the postal printing plant in Mechelen, with the proud speech of Belgium permanent representative.

Then, with images of the sales, NATO Deputy Secretary General  Rose Gottemoeller of the USA expressed her joy (on Twitter too) as a stamp collector with her husband. She told that, assigned in a foreign country, they bought complete sheet of a particularly appreciated stamp to frame and decorated their house.

The video ends with collectors getting their first day cancels and sticking the stamp in their Belgium album pages.

Charles Mazelin signed souvenirs at the French ten anniversary stamp he designed and engraved, 12 December 1959 (NATO website).

A gift: the NATO website has got a small history of the postage stamps and commemorative cancels created in its name, starting 1952 with Portugal and the United States issues.

The display lacks mails posted during the operations under NATO command - but too close to war and casualties surely... and choose them carefully, the Allies are still blamed for some of them.

Week #2016.36 on SébPhilatélie

Experts, a lot of books and a tv series... with a look back to the mid-2000s.

Sunday 4 September: Expertise offensive in France, still going.
For almost a year now, associate experts Calves son and Jacquart are continuing expending their presence after they open their expertise certificate index on the web that allow to check a certificate a buyer or an exhibition judge wish to control.

This September, they are now publishing a monthly column in Timbres magazine alerting the public with the fraudulent and false stamps, cancellations or overprints they encountered recently.

November 2015, expert master Jean-François Brun, still active but perhaps not into communication as his two competitors, launched a pedagogic blog with pdf file to explain and teach the collectors on the problem of identifying frauds.

In the last article, he highlighted the lightness of stamp catalogue that have refused to print that a 70 cent Paquebot Pasteur can not exist without overprint (its issue was chaotic because of the 1939 declaration of war), allowing the hopeful doubt of having found a rarity... Then he reminds consumers that a dealer should not expertize the material he knows he is going to sell.

Wednesday 7 September: The 1836 Anglo-French Postal Convention by Geoffrey Lewis.
Having read large part of Australian postal historian Geoffrey Lewis' book, I proposed my literary critic - despite being a moron in the field he studied :)

The book cover (Books on philately. The philatelic bilbiopole).

The first chapter is the most important because he graphically explains what one should look at on a 1830s letter that went through the British-French postal road. Both postal administrations then created a mean to be sure that incoming and outgoing mail were going to be paid whatever the origin and destination in the whole world.

And that's why the other chapters are very interesting, even if quite repetitive. Lewis established them by marcophilic and geographic topics. Yes, he repeats a lot the same principles, but you easily find all the intels you need to decipher the marks on that particular letter you are holding.

To see how Geoffrey Lewis works, a pdf summary of one of his conference is available on the American Philatelic Society's Postal History Symposium website. He participated to the 9th edition at the New York Stampshow last May-June.

The book is published by the Royal Philatelic Society London.

Saturday 10 September: Philatelic t-shirt in The West Wing.
Article available in both French and English.

The philatelic collectibles on the heroin's shoulders (The West Wing, 2005).

And I am still interested in any information on who designed this t-shirt, please.

Sunday 11 September: Belgium in the Biblioteca Sebastiana.

Thank to a gift this week, I present the three Belgian books in my small library: the 50th edition of the Official Catalogue of Belgium (2005), Patrick Maselis' 2005 book on the thirteen trials of creating colonies in the whole world from the Azores Islands, known as the Flemish Islands back in the mid-15th century, until the still Belgian inhabitants of Villaguay, Argentina.

Cover of the Englihs and French edition of Vincent Schouberechts' book (the editor website).

2016 new publication I received is Vincent Schouberechts' The Post Books: 500 Years of history in Europe (Lannoo edition). Through the study of fifty documents, he told the larger public possible how the postal system was established, has grown in Europe from the 16th century until the General Union of Post that make international sending of mail easier.

A common line helps organised the book: the birth and death of the postal monopoly of the Thurn und Taxis family in the Holy Empire. On the side, the author proposes trips to the Antiques, Middle Ages and Space mail. Let's hope it attracts new people towards the study and collections of old documents and postal history.

The most attentive of you will remember the special exhibition proposed by the Club of Monte Carlo at Europhilex London 2015: 20 documents for 20 events that changed the world. The enjoy this book and the pdf of the exhibit still downloadable.

Week #2016.12 on SébPhilatélie

Tuesday 22th March: Difficult times in our world.
Thoughts after the too many jihadist attacks in Europe, the Middle East and, let's not forget, the North and Western parts of the African continent. Discovering all these countries and populations through postage stamps could help remind we are all in this together.

Shrimp fishing on horseback, one of UNESCO's intagible cultural heritage, is practised in Oostduinkerke, Belgium (stamp issued June 2015 by bpost).

One of the Serval stamps of Mali, printed by French plant Phil@poste Boulazac, issued 2014 (colnect and UPU's WNS), an educative thank to the Allies who came to help Mali in 2013.

Saturday 26th March: Being offered a magazine... a trap to whom?
The same day the April issue of Timbres magazine was published, competitor-by-order-only L'Écho de la timbrologie sent me its own April issue free...

Created 1887, the French monthly was retrieved by philatelist printer Théodule Tellier in 1990 as he was managing the Yvert plant, waiting for the son, Louis Yvert, to be ready. Both men were the founder of the philatelic family firm Yvert and catalogue Yvert et Tellier.

But, since a decade now, L'Écho has been no more available at newsstands: yearly subscription and individual issue order (printed or digital) are only available online... The question was then, and still now: how do you find new readers? For example me who didnot resubscribe late 2008 because reading it was too quick.

Eight years later, it's still not my cup of tea even if some collectors can find it interesting: only four articles, and a lot of news about new issues of France, of the associations and the Federation.

To me, nothing compare to Timbres magazine with many articles, in which I find what I want and lots of thing to discover. Bonus in April: after an undecided new formula last September (the principles are different from the results, and I love the results), the editor in chief announces a complete renovation for September 2016, a revolution even, like the zero issue of ancestor Timbroscopie in 1984 who shook the leaders of the time: Le Monde des philatélistes, that finally merged 2000 with its competitor to form Timbres magazine, and L'Écho.

Thank you, L'Écho, but no, thanks. Waiting April 15th the new exceptional issue of Timbres magazine on the French presence in the world through stamps (after the first one), philately and postal history. And now for the renovated magazine in September.

Tibetan supporters bump into Deutsche Post

Last Wednesday December 4th 2015, Sonja Gillert told in Die Welt how personalised stamp orders by German association International Campaign for Tibet have been poisoning Deutsche Post DHL since last Srping.

One of the personalised stamp ordered to Deutsche Post (International Campaign for Tibet, reproduced by Die Welt)

After Austria Post had to cancel a philatelic program issue in 2005 - some printing essays ended on the market - we thought that postal operators of countries that want to have very peaceful and profitable trade relations with the People's Republic of China would be careful. All the more when the operator is, since 2001, the heart of a transnational group of transportation and logistic,  DHL.

The article summarized the chronicle of an order for personalised stamp to mark the 80th birthday of Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama and nowadays moral and spiritual leader of the exiled Tibetans since communist China occupied Tibet.

6'400 were ordered, printed and delivered last Spring to the German section of the United States organisation savetibet.org. Then, it was a rush to stick one on a letter to the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, surely happy if he has friends collectors of stamps.

Why do I smell smoke? (International Campaign for Tibet, reproduced in Rainbow Stamp Club blog, July 4th 2015).

Was it the mediatisation of their mail to the Amabassador? Or a brutal telephone relation between said amabassador and the federal ministry for Foerign Affaits? Or DHL director in China that alerted his parent company that the dragon was breathing into his lungs, organs already darkened by the dense pollution in Beijing?

Anyway, now the association knows a lot of problem to get a second order of the stamp in November... because Deutsche Post's PostIndividuell service changed in-between. And that motivated a new article by the Berlin newspaper.

Nowadays in Germany you can order Star Wars personalised stamps - Oïe! Royal Mail and La Poste are not the only one to issue such stamps?!! - but not stamps figuring politicians from foreign countries.

The journalist explained that the president of the Free State of Bavaria could received such stamps for his birthday, but no one will honor a visit of the President of the United States of American such a way...

While the pro-Tibetan association is trying to break in the new rules, its leaders are watching the next personalised stamp orders accepted by Deutsche Post to try to catch the company offguard.



Chance of the news, early December, a Flemish independist party is furious of bpost, the Belgian operator. Whereas the party had ordered personalised stamps the last ten years, this year's picture (between independentist coat of arms and Catalonian flags) or the logotype and motto of the parti seem to hurt the new rules on neutrality of personalised stamps.

Surely the federal deputies of the party will get answers from bpost during the next session.

This week #2015.47 on SébPhilatélie

Slow week on both blogs due to working schedule and the heavy news context since Friday 13th from Paris to Brussels, and from Syria and Iraq to Mali and Nigeria.

Monday November 16th: Around the Commonwealth in 80 days.
If I wrote here an article on the Rhodesias step of the trip by Stamp Magazine and The London Philatelist, I added two more from December 2015 Stamp Magazine in the French article: Jeff Dugdale's research on diversity on the stamps of Britain and John Winchester's philatelic study of Queen Salote of Tonga, including the very first autoadhesive stamps in 1963.

Reproduced on an anniversary British stamp to the National Portait Gallery, the portrait by Challen of Mary Seacole, prooves that diversity in the British society is not just a communautarism fashion of our time: the Jamaican born-Scottish descent lady, after her candidature was rejected by the War Office, travelled from Jamaica to London and then Crimea to open an hospital near the battlefields of the Crimean War, 1850s... (picture on commons.wikimedia.org)

Saturday November 21st: A pretty cinderella packet for an order to Yvert et Tellier.

Nice packet after an efficient forty-eight hour delivery of an Yvert et Tellier packet. The French editor and stamp dealer send my purchase of the two reference books issued in 2000 in a packet decorated with red cinderella stamps: sort of portraits, Antic landscapes, sea painting and the Eiffel Tower.

To read again: George slaying the Demon.

As news from Belgium are worrisome this past week and this morning declaration of high caution in Brussels Region, let's remind the arms of the municipality is Saint George slaying the Demon as depicted on a machine stamp I discovered in 2005.

The week #2015.45 on SébPhilatélie

Let's try to revive my philatelic blog in English by summarizing the main articles of the week on his French counterpart.

Tuesday, November 3rd: postal game night with The Legend of Zelda, a series of Nintendo video games in which the player receives a huge lot of mail since The Wind Waker.

The mail sorting center inside the Island Post Office in The Wind Waker (screen capture of the game by zeldawiki.org).

Because I began playing Twilight Princess these past three weeks, I rediscover the running postman in his bunny underwear... And it reminds me of the mini-game of the previous episode, pictured above: for ruppees and a piece of heart, you can become a postman!

Link and his horse Epona on one of the French 2005 minisheet Heroes of video game (Phil-Ouest.com, THE database to know on French stamps and their creators).

And I was still in philately thanks to this nice low value youth stamp of France. Mario was on the other side at thirty three cents.

Friday, November 6th: revelation from the French philatelic service - Phil@poste -  for 2016.

At the Paris Autumn Stamp Show, Phil@poste's Director Gilles Livchitz presented all the projects of his service to help philately and not just print and sell a huge amount of stamps and souvenirs.

The three hundred post office that will receive a philatelic counter (from the press pdf).

 What of interest for foreign collectors? Philatelic counters are coming back after having being destroyed completely... Three hundred post offices will be affected, where Phil@poste's clients are. Now we have a sort of French philately map.

Or a map of the French stamps subscribers who refused to go full-mail and want to continue going to the post office to get their stamps.

British special cancellation collectors will recognize this item (from the press pdf). 

Don't be surprised if the next first day cover of France arrived enclosed in a paper envelope. Finally, Phil@poste has heard years of collectors' complaints about special cancelled mail being recancelled at the sorting centers. Each envelope will cost fifteen cents.

In the French article, I imagined that an unlucky employee was sent to Assassin's Creed Syndicate's London to find about this easy solution.

Only mischief: the phi greek letter will survive 2015 and continue to disgrace the philatelic program of France...

Saturday November 7th: Belgium philatelic program for 2016 announced.

Picture by Lieve Blancquaert, to be issued on October 14th, 2016 (© bpost).

And bpost succeeded to catch a lot of French speaking web media attention, from the general ones to the religious and communautary oriented ones. The Belgian main postal operator (still majoritary owned by State), communicated on religious tolerance and acceptance with a symbolic stamp uniting a rabbi, an archbishop and an imam.

If you browse the four pdf files of the 2016 program (1, 2, 3 and 4), you'll be impressed by all the serious peoples celebrated from author Verhaeren to ten Belgian Nobel Prizes, a lot of local flowers and André Buzin's birds, the children of the Royal Family, and finally comics character (anniversary of Tintin magazine).

A very nice simple program.

Sunday November 8th: Stephen Colbert entertained TV viewers with banknote collecting.

Colbert proposed you a huge offer for a rare eyepatch (pen inked) Washington bill for only one thousand bucks! (youTube - CBS)

In his Tuesday November 3rd show, U.S. humorist Stephen Colbert entertained viewers of his Late Show on CBS with how one can get lost in the amount of intels when browsing the internet.

But he discovers a website that let people "get rich by collecting money"!

CoolSerialNumbers.com get free publicity and the public a lesson that the serial number of a banknote can improve his collecting value. Of course Colbert went quickly crazy by proposing his own bill collection on sale: don't miss it on youTube.

A cool way of warning the public on how some internet sellers can get their money with awful false collectable, especially the '"Eyepatch Washington" that will remind philatelists on fraudulent cancels and overprints.

A cool week on the leisure side.

In Belgium, store your stamps

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...

Postal points in Belgium

La Poste of Belgium is getting rid of the problem of denomination on its stamps. Belgian stamps bear a number of points, representing a postal value. Just put enough points to send something.

On 1 October 2007, the definitive series began the point system. At this time, one point was 0.52 euro, now 0.54 euro. Here you have a postcard sent to France for 1.08 euro !!! I think the sender was lost in this system as I was wondering what labels were under my eyes until I remember the Belgian recent history. From Belgium to France, a postcard only need 0.80 euro (0.65 euro from France to Belgium).

(La Poste website)

The system applied to "special series" (the philatelic program) too if they bore a value multiple of the point's value.


A new step was taken last 2 January 2009: the European points and Worldwide points appeared for the European and worodlwide rates that are not multiples of the Interior point.

(La Poste website)

"1" in a European flag or 0.80 euro.

(La Poste website)

"1" in a globe or 0.90 euro.

Because I do not follow the philatelic program of Belgium, I do not know what to think of this system? Are the circled points well included into the stamp design? Do clients accept this system without being spoiled?

Thank you, merchants!

With the new issue post office crowded and the exhibited collections put in another hall (but some lucky ones near the interview and happening stage) - and I admit a lack of wish to find them -, the Paris Salon du timbre's stamp dealers saw me longer than usual.

My cover and stamp finds will be showed here from July to September after I finally put my boxes down somewhere and give some fresh air to the collection.

There are yet some things to see while the show is still on. Like at La Poste of Belgium, a book on the colonies and colonial trials by Belgians (or, for some period, Catholic Dutchs) from 1451 to 1916: Patrick Maselis, Des Açores à la Nouvelle-Zélande [From the Azores to New Zealand], published by Roularta Books (with the help of the Stuart Rossiter Trust Fund and Belgian philatelic fund Pro-Post), more than 400 pages, 30 euros, available in an English version and a French version.

Already written, but good things don't hurt when repeated: go read the publications proposed by the Académie de philatélie, at the Salon for its 80th anniversary.

Marvels are shown by prestige auctionners: Behr et Feldman for example.

More surprising, the Northern Korea post is present (with little success this morning).

You touch the bottom of your wallet, don't worry: you can play quiz to learn again your France's stamps and topics of the world. Or walk around the gardens of the Floral Park surrounding the stamp show (with the sun today). The Castle of Vincennes, formerly Royal, can be walked through.

Belgium and Antarctica

Belgium is one of the countries participating to the scientific adventure in Antarctica since the very end of the 19th century, under the initial command of Adrien de Gerlache.

A base was opened between 1958 and 1968, named Roi-Baudouin, and did certainly inspire a three stamp and a minisheet semipostal series. Here is one of these stamps about the weather balloon.

Stamps that were issued in October 1966, just two years before the base was abandoned.

For the International Polar Year 2007-2008, Belgium decided to open a new base, Princesse-Élisabeth, for which a minisheet was issued, picturing the de Gerlage's ship, the Belgica.

I did not succeed to find which Princess Élisabeth was honored. Probably, the daughter of Prince Philippe, the eldest son of King Albert II.

Pray for peace

In these tormented times (but did they really quiet in the end?), let's watch back the hope of the sixties. Not the May 1968 students' movement of Paris, more John Kennedy's and his contemporaries' sixties.

Found on a cover cancelled on 27 November 1967 in Bloomington, Indiana for an arrival in Belgium next December, via Brussels:

The brown stamp was the second one dedicated to the assassinated president. The pictorial "Pray for peace" cancellation is linked to his presidency, both inside and outside the United States.


One book more, harder to retrieve, but which contents lots of texts by these 1960s optimists, all three assassinated: John Kennedy and his brother Robert, and Martin Luther King. German telivision journalist Thilo Koch's Kämpfer für eine neue Welt [Fighters for a new world], 1968 published by C.J. Bucher.


Idealism, when you caught me...

Kings of the Belgians

On the cover of Patrick Roegiers' The Spectacular History of the Kings of the Belgians, postage stamps were used : definitives and - at least - one commemorative (the second one picturing Leopold II).

(amazon.fr)

Belgian priority

Since Wednesday 1st August 2007, the non-priority interior mail rate does not more exist in Belgium for common users. You have to send your letters in priority rate, that exists there under the brand "PRIOR" printed on the stamps or on a label se-tenant.

The Belgian that used the non-Prior rates is affecting with a 0,06 € increase for a simple letter under 50 grams (0,52 € prior), and respecting some dimensions. Don't respect this standard at the same weight, the franking will cost you 1,02 € per letter.

To help the use of remaining 0,46 € stamps, a new stamps of the Buzin's Birds was issued last 9th July. It represents a little owl (Athene noctua, Harry Potter's effect ?) painted by André Buzin, like all the stamps of this definitive series since 1985.

In an answer to the RTBF, La Poste/De Post explains this suppression by its efficiency : thank to the modernization of his mail sorting, 95 % of Belgian interior letters are delivered the next day.

Expensively philatelic

Chères nouveautés du monde :
(French play-on-word : cher means an expensive price and is the polite overture of a letter like "Dear")

Dear New Stamps of the world :

Regularly, the USPS renews its stamps for expensive services (registered, express mail, etc.), with a flying illustration from plane to eagle. For 2007, they are the president of the United States' vehicles that are photographed in action : Air Force One and Marine One. The latter is at the cheap price of 16,25 dollars. Cheap because you are sure your urgent parcel is open by your correspondent tomorrow morning (I wished it would be so easily for the normal rate...). Equivalent of 12,08 euros. Insatisfied ? The 20 stamp sheet will please you at only 325 dollars (twice what I eat monthly).

In Belgium, the centenary of Hergé merits a special issue : a 25 stamp sheet reproduces a picture of the artist and a cover of the 24 albums of the Adventures of Tintin, in 24 of the languages it was translated over the years. 25 times 0,46 € = 11,50 euros (15,47 US dollars). But every one of your twenty-five next letters will be different from the others (if you remember to buy two sheets, one for collection he ! ... 23 euros).

So, once out of many times, I admit that on the next July, 2nd, La Poste of France will be quite moderate with mini-sheets at the price of simple definitive booklets. For 5,40 €, you'll remember the lively ambiance of a rugby stadium with the ten stamps by fantastic sport stamp designer Éric Fayolle. Worse of all, you'll have to pay up to 2,16 € to own four monuments of Brussels with four other in the background of the sheet in the European Capitales series, painted this year by talentuous Marc Taraskoff. Pretty mail coming this summer :)

Philatelic stop in Brussels

If you go to Brussels, don't forget to visit the philatelic shop. It is at the far end of the post office opened at the intersection of De Brouchère place and Anspach boulevard. It's right in the middle of the town, in front of the Centre Monnaie where it stayed some years ago. In May 2005, I bought and used this machine stamp :


After I chose quietly some stamps of the philatelic program for my mail, I stopped at the stamp machine at the entrance. I knew that I would get one new stamp thank to the magazine of the Belgian Post's philatelic service. On the stamp are a green halo and red outside, with on the right hand, Saint Michel killing the demon, the town's coat of arms.

This stamp pleases me because, for a French eye, it wears so many colors for a machine stamp, and furthermore can be differently illustrated from town to town... One of the next time, I will explain this French astonishment.

Article modified on 14 March 2009 thank to a Belgian reader who described me the arms of Bruxelles.