Week #2016.40 on SébPhilatélie

A light week again on the blog in French, but for a nice reading on Chinese culture and the exhibition at the Stamp Festival in my city.

Monday 3 October: Stanley Gibbons' problems numbered in low pounds.
A summary from a Guardian article of that same day. The situation is bad and my thoughts are with the employees of the catalogues and Gibbons Stamp Monthly whose excellent work is threatened by the stupid cupidity of golden boys.

Wednesday 5 October: Cultural exchange with China.
In the October issue of The London Philatelist, Huadong Zhang proposes a two-part article on the word "stamp" in English and in Chinese languages. Very interesting and that may inspired some review of your Chinese countries and territories collection to check the ideograms for the words "you piao" in Mandarin and "shidan" in Cantonese.

With the issue the list of the Royal Philatelic Society London reminds that both Republics of China and the Special Region of Hong Kong formed a combined group of sixty members, more than many European countries. The issue proposes a summary of the latest Chinese RPSL meeting in Xinjiang, including the local publication of a postal history.

Friday 7 October: Gibbons Stamp Monthly sent through Deutsche Post?
In the gloomy context described above, I was not surprised to see a Deutsche Post label over the plastic bag of the October issue of Gibbons Stamp Monthly, received late September.

Was the German way chosen by Gibbons to save money? Or is it a practice of the Royal Mail to save cost - since the 1st class indicia printed is still in its name? Who may know?

Saturday 8 October: Quiet Stamp Festival in Montpellier, or not if you look closely to open class.
This week-end, the French organised philately (nicknamed φl@télie on my blogs) is celebrating the Fête du timbre - the Stamp Festival.

The Guillaume de Nogaret municipal room, one of the traditional exhibit halls of the Association philatélique montpelliéraine (picture under Creative Commons licence by-nc-sa 3.0 fr).

Soon the article in French will be adapted in English because I met an interesting fellow collector who presented me yesterday how open class inspired many of them, despite the opinion of "serious" others.

For those who can not wait and have faith in Google Translate, the paper confronts the non competitive exhibition with the current evolutions of the closest faubourgs of Montpellier city center I walked past going to the event.

A reminder: Montpellier will host the French philatelic championship and federal congress in May-June 2019.

Week... A month on SébPhilatélie: mid-June to early July 2016

Job and the traditional arrival of heat on Southern France make writing a tiresome activity. But the blog in French has continued, especially summaries of Paris-Philex stamp show of last May.

Friday 17 June: exoticism at Paris-Philex.

20th century history of Spain inspires French collectors, not always those of Spanish descent, and the invited Spanish collectors, while Jean-Michel Garaud proposed a collection on Daguin cancellations in Chile.

Exotism can happen in the philatelic rule: surprisingly, Jean-Claude Ferret studied the postal history and cancellations of Nemours, France until today... while generally such monographies stopped at 1876 and the third definitive stamp series of France.

Thursday 23 June: museum on the side of Paris-Philex.

As I was in Paris for Paris-Philex, I visited the Museum at the Golden Door (Porte dorée) a dozen tramway stops from the stamp show.

The façade of the Palace of the Porte Dorée by Alfred Janniot - 1929-1931 - illustrated an exploited imperial workforce and the imperial importations, with the fantasy of "Liberty" and "Peace" for all in the central allegory (picture under Creative Commons licence cc by-nc-nd 3.0 fr - reminder: Janniot died 1969).

Originally built and decorated in the 1930s for a colonial pride exhibition, the place between Paris and the Vincennes Forest and lakes continues to house an aquarium and is upstairs dedicated to the history of immigration in France... Yes, a difficult topic nowadays.

And through the main exhibits and the Borders special one, the philatelic visitor can find a lot of stamps, both postal and fiscal, postcards, etc.

Friday 24 June: a late London Olympic stamp in Australia.

Australia Post issued a stamp celebrating walker Jarred Walker's gold meal at London 2012 Olympics. Why so late? Because he was awarded it last March when the winner was convinced of doping.

The Jared Tallent "instant stamp" (Australia Post shop).

Saturday 25 June: French history and exotism in Gibbons Stamp Monthly this summer.

Starting with issue dated July 2016, the British magazine started a French summer with an article on the Battle of the Somme through British military mail and an other one on the stamps of French Congo in the 1900s.

The latter marks the publication of the French colonies catalogue of Stanley Gibbons, now that France and its colonies/overseas are separated.

In August it is promised an article on Tromelin Island, one of the tony Scattered Islands of France around Madagascar, named after the captain who saved a few surviving of the slaves abandoned there by a French crew after their ship sunk there.

Tuesday 28 June: The London Philatelist read as a good old movies night.

The June 2016 issue of the Royal Philatelic Society London's publication reminded me of a classic movie night on 1980s French television.

The post box Main Street of Gibraltar created thank to information given by Richard Garcia (Google Maps, text added with free software Paint.NET).

It opens with a documentary by Richard Garcia on historic post boxes on Main Street, Gibraltar, followed by a teaser for Stockholmia 2019, an exhibition for the 150th birthday of the Society.

The first movie then plays: an Australian western with mail robbery by Brian Peace.

At the entr'acte, Richard Wheatley proposed a 1970 cover from Britain to passengers on a ship at its stop in Chile. The five stamps all bear a catalogued variety!!!

After the announced of a Guide to Postal Stationery in Iraq, let's go to British occupied then administrated Mesopotamia for a detective story by Barry Scott: what are those red markings on early 1920s mail coming from there?

Thursday 30 June: 1000 articles in 9½ year.

A long personal memory on one thousand articles on SébPhilatélie.

Sunday 3 July: By Mörck, a butterfly artist from Sweden to China through Greenland.

This Spring, author and editor Jon Nordstrøm published a rough interview book with engraver Martin Mörck, surely the second most prolific after Czesław Słania.

Why is there a Chinese engraved soldier on the cover? Because philately and Mörck are "in" in the People's Republic (Nordstroms editions via Nordfrim).

The book is heavily illustrated with lots of stamps of course and engraved plates, but with the collections of Mörck! From the first stamp of Norway on maritime covers that circulated between Norwegian ports to Greenlandish local artwork.

A very interesting read, even if the interview could have been put in writing shape, where you understand that the growth of philatelic interest in China is more profound that just bubble market.

Tuesday 5 July: Stampex 1963 Annigoni Hong Kong souvenir.

Found after browsing some boxes at Paris-Philex, this souvenir from the famous London stamp show. It's the second one I got presenting how the colors are printing on a Honk Kong Queen Elizabeth II stamp.

The souvenir distributed at the 10th Stampex London.

The collections by effigy of Queen Elizabeth II are numerous: Wilding, Machin,... and Annigoni from the larger than life royal painting by Pietro Annigoni in 1956 that ended on many stamps and banknotes as collected by StampBoards.com members.

Note that The Queen: Art & Image exhibition is still available on the National Portrait Gallery website.

Wednesday 6 July: journalism and La Poste in Brittany.

A very small scandal in the far western region of France: a regional newspaper and a national radio reported the anger of a client of the postal operator. She sent flyers to schools to promote the activities of her theater in Breton association.

But, with the schoolyear end coming quickly, she was asked to translate the flyer because it may be "propaganda"...

If you read a more local newspaper, you discover La Poste's point of view: to have the best postal rate possible, the association was proposed a sending in bulk, more than 400 identical piece of mail towards numerous départements. But to apply, the content should not be illegal or political propaganda.

Much ado about nothing.

Saturday 9 July: open class exibition at Paris-Philex.

At first thought, I don't like to watch thematic, postcard, open class exhibitions... but of course I found some interest in some of those collections at Paris-Philex last May.

The most debated item of the show in Philippe Nadeau's encyclopedic collection on mushrooms: large silver (collection Philippe Nadeau, Paris-Philex, May 2016).

From mould on bread to hair/sking and poo of an elephant (No animal were harmed during the exhibition), the open class collections continued to make many "serious philatelists" grind their teeth when discussing about the little one of the exhibit classes and the most cherished one by the French Federation to catch the attention of new publics.

If the complete collection is read, the whole world is discovered, both on the topic and its philately/postal history. Next to the famous mould on bread, was printed the legend on how the roquefort cheese was accidentally discovered.

Still more useful than some contemporary art I have to watch at the Centre Pompidou, later than Saturday Night of Museum.

Other collectibles used in open class were a vinyle disc, a large Olympic plate, etc.

To be continued...

Week #2016.18 on SébPhilatélie and France Inter

This past week, almost all articles have their version in French and English, but two:

Thursday 5 May: ships on Chine stamps, a way to show power.

Stamped corner of a postcard from the People's Republic of China.

After Gauthier Toulemonde's new special issue on geopolicy, an article about the expanding sea power of the People's Republic of China. The French journalist discovered that former French colony and current French military base, Djibouti, was to host a Chinese facility in the international operation against piracy from Somalian pirates.

I found back in my archives French news article on how the small Pacific islands states and Sri Lanka were courted by Beijing, in competition to other regional, and even, world power.

These stamps I received on a Postcrossing exchange show an Arctic research vessel of Chinare, the Chinese Administration on Arctic and Antarctic (issued 2014) and an oil refinery ship from a 2013 three stamp series on off shore oil production.

Sunday 8 May at 9am: Cinderella for a counterfactual history book.

Cover of the 2011 edition of Niall Ferguson's book (amazon.co.uk).

As a lover of uchrony/alternate history, I am interested in the historians who have tried counterfactual history: to study the documents and facts of past events and tried, by imagining that History could have gone elsewhere, to understand how it would have been possible or impossible, forced by certain choices. The objective being to weight the actors, their choice, etc.

To promote the reedition of 1997 counterfactual history book Virtual History by British historian Niall Ferguson, Penguin ordered a recreation of British 1929 Universal Postal Congress stamp into a Nazi 1949 Universal Postal Congress with the effigy of Aldolf Hitler... Sure to catch the eye of a philatelist.


And as I was browsing for philatelic intelligence:

Sunday 8 May at 6am: Gauthier Toulemonde launch new media offensive.

Cover of the second special Le Dessous des timbres [Underneath the stamps]issue on "The unbelievable French presence in the world" (Timbropresse webstore).

On the model of the first special issue last Autumn-early Winter, editor-in-chief Gauthier Toulemonde made his first appearance on a French national media to promote philately and the second special issue on the French presence in the world through - and I only quote a few examples - stamps of the French post offices in Greece or Ethopia, history on how the French interferd in local affairs of many continents and some anecdotes on French dreamers trying to seize empty territories for themselves.

This morning he was interviewed by Dorothée Barba in the early morning broadcast of national public radio France Inter between 6:17 to almost 7am: anecdotes on stamps and geopolicy mainly, and why do the adventurer want to live and telework from desert island (an experiment he will do again next October).

Because of the heated French debate on the Labour Law reforms, he was asked about remuneration inequalities, the indeterminate work contract (CDI) he prefers as a small firm boss, and what his view on working conditions are.


And at 11.30am in France, let's remember Victory against totalitarism in 1945 and tomorrow reflect on why we need stronger European Union and United Nations.

Week #2016.07 on SébPhilatélie, other blogs and medias

A week of crossposts.

Monday February 15th: the century long life and career of Ken Baker.

Thank to the reading of StampBoards threads, I discovered two of the charismatic stamp dealers of Australia. On Sunday 14th I summarized the life of Max Stern who passed away the Thursday before, then I discovered Ken Baker, who left us on January, a Londoner migrant who became a successfull dealer first in Melbourne, then in Sydney.

To read the souvenirs Ken Baker told dealer Glen Stephens in English, the latter published them on his editorial website in March 2012 to mark Baker's centenary.

Friday February 19th: Cyprus classical philately at 41 Devonshire Place.

Despite being a complete moron on classical traditional philately and bored at the idea of sorting all these stamps myself to understand printing methods, I was amazed by Akis Christou's conference at the Royal Philatelic Society London.

About the Victorian stamps of Cyprus from 1880 to 1896, he went into all the details one can know about all the varieties affecting their overprints, even the - difficult - possibility of plating one of this issue by replacing blocks of stamps depending on the full sheet watermark!

As always, the video can be easily found by the Society's members and all guests can browse the pdf file.

Saturday February 20th: The Penguin Post Office backstage on BBC Radio 4.

A small discovery yesterday: British news and culture public channel Radio 4 broadcasted again last Christmas time the behind-the-scene testimony by the natural documentary crew that went to Antarctica to film The Penguin Post Office. between October 2013 and St David's Day 2014.

BBC Radio 4's chosen picture of the museum and post office, and a small part of the thousand noisy and  smelling penguins (Radio 4 website).

The TV show was viewable prime time on BBC 2 on July 2014 and on PBS in January 2015. The United States public channel issued a dvd, surely blocked on zone 1 [Readers in Canada and U.S. will make me happy to check what the dvd zoning number logo is, please].

The backstage documentary is breathtaking during the cruise from South America to the Antarctic Peninsula among the iceberg and the blizzard. The second part of the five episodes manages to present the long and patient wait for the penguins and other animals to do what you need to film, the difficulties of the crew managing both the filming (or lack of filming) and the maintenance of their living equipment.

The philatelist will of course enjoy the small talks with the Postmistress and her assistant, waiting for the tourist boats to arrive. The museum and post office is operated since 1996 by the United Kingdom Antartic Heritage Trust, that found a good brand with "the penguin post office", and uses stamps of the British Antarctic Territory.

Sunday February 21st: hangover or begin of wisdom in Adelaide?

All quiet on the Australian front, just the eBay shells falling here and there - my little centenary of the battle of Verdun touch, while StampBoards generals philosophing on philatelic strategies.

Were are we these past week? A stripe of unused six Adelaide emergency 30 cent stamps seems to be at 2,000 Australian dollars. The albino inverted "$1.00" error in a strip of six passed the 5,000 dollar mark. Used on cover or little kiloware paper clip are under the thousand, largely depending on their date of cancellation: look for anything cancelled well before the mediatisation mid-January ; better the 6 and 7 january ones.

On StampBoards starting with page 13, the talks were a little bit more philatelic than speculative: what happened to create the "30c" and "$1.00" albino inverted errors.

The speculative hopes will come from three catalogue editors (Gibbons, Scott and Seven Seas Stamps), two of them are preparing their new Australia catalogue... A new stampede from overseas now?

In the March 2016 issue of Stamp Magazine.

While I late discovered the now famous "treasure chest" full of undelivered letters, kept by French huguenot postmaster Simon de Brienne in The Hague, in the future Netherlands, my letter to Stamp Magazine was published to highlight the enthusiastic interview of historian David Van der Linden on France Culture.

The famous chest and its letters (© Signed, Sealed & Undelivered Team, 2015. Courtesy Museum voor Communicatie, The Hague, Netherlands).

The speculative bubble in Adelaide, Australia bothers me on a regular bothering matter in philately and postal history: the high cost one goes to buy a unused or clearly cancelled isolated stamp and on't bother that, in the second case, an envelope was destroyed in the process...

... That's why I like David Van der Linden and his colleagues' wish not to unseal the letters and x-ray them in order to read them.

 Records in auctions, again in Stamp Magazine.

This month, in Stamp Magazine's "Auction Highlights" pages, two examples conforts my opinion that some may lose a lot financially, and more importlantly in knowledge for the next generation by focusing only on isolated stamps.

In a sale in Hong Kong on January 17th, Spink proposed Meiso Mizuhara's Chinese Customs Post collection. Projects for the first stamps of China were offered ; one with two drawn on the same sheet of paper (a large dragon and a pagoda) became the most expensive essays in philatelic history at 359,142 pounds sterling...

On the next page, a returned letter label, perforated, from 1872 Norway with a cancel on which you can read the city of origin reached 1,385 pounds at a Skanfil sale. The perforated stamp-size label explained why the mail was returned to sender.

When you think again how all that's said about our contemporary unstamped, labelled mail by stamp collectors...

French happenings on other blogs.

Yesterday, Adrian Keppel brought a TV Timbres video to the intaglio fan's attention. In this documentary Timbres Magazine's editor-in-chief Gauthier Toulemonde visited engraver Pierre Albuisson in his country home. The artist explained concrete things on how to engrave, how to prepare the tools.

A very nice addition to Gibbons Stamp Monthly's recent monthly articles on intaglio printing, started in the December 2015 issue, following the Long to Reign over Us issue.

Laurent Veglio published his second article on his blog in French - non-French readers can read the Italian version too or test Google Translate with both versions.

The postal historian is very efficient to prove a complete envelope is very interesting when the postmen help it: how a innocent 40 centime stamped letter from Paris to Italy in 1867 made a transatlantic return trip to Saint Thomas and Montserrat in the Caribbean.

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.

Mao president of the U.S. in 'Le Monde'

Exactly one year ago, French newspaper Le Monde reformed its weekly economic and business supplements into a daily eight page delivered with its printed edition (noon in the major cities, on the printed date everywhere else). The act conforms with Le Figaro's traditional pink pages.

Advertisment announcing the event (Le Monde of April 30th, 2013).

 Advertising company Publicis Conseil proposed a campaign with a striking portrait of Chinese leader Máo Zédōng into a one dollar banknote instead of George Washington, the first President of the United States.

Motto was "Because the economy is changing the world, Le Monde's changing too", playing with the French meaning of "monde/world", and the fashion of thinking the emerging capacities of the Peopl's Republic of China on our capitalist and market economy, including the U.S. debts.

Or is it an uchronic banknote of the world as would be if? What's the anglo-saxon literaries called alternate history.

New French translation of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, published in 2012.

Uchronic or alternate historic banknotes can be find on book covers or sometimes described in the novel.

Here is an example on the 2012 cover of the new translation in French of Philip K. Dick's masterpiece The Man in the High Castle. Adolf Hitler on a one hundred U.S. dollar banknote... or, in fact, of the Pacific States of America...

The story tells how characters react after reading an alternate history novel inside an alternate history universe: after World War 2, the Axis powers occupied each one coast of the United States and let live a puppet State in the Rocky Mountains.

As no one really knows what is happening (or fears to know) in the Nazi America or even in Africa, troubled business and geopolitical relations take place in San Francisco, capital city of the Pacific States, where Japanese are struggling between cultural identity evolutions with the Americans and difficult diplomacy with the imperialist Nazis.

In this context, an author, at peace in the Rockies, published a book that imagine a world where the war ended differently... and is not our History, and written with the help of the I Ching, a Chinese book containing a system of divination.

Yes, more mind storming than a commercial for an economic newspaper.

Tibet (2)

After my day of work, I discover that a part of the French national territory became a dictatorship during some hours this monday, the time necessary for the wet olympic firecracker to be sheltered inside a bus to parade through Paris. To simply have a colored flag or a Reporters Without Borders' poster in hand provoked the wrath of the French anti-riot forces. More worrying, policemen of the People's Republic of China helped...

Flag of Tibet (Government of Tibet in exile website),
forbidden today in the streets of Paris.

All this reminded me of a former affair: in 2005, for the 70th birthday of the Dalai Lama, Austrian Post prepared a official stamp issue. Jean-Louis Emmenegger's article published in L'Écho de la timbrologie of June 2005 told that the Chinese diplomacy was very efficient to cancel the issue. Even a private citizen's order of a personalized stamp on the same topic was cancelled by the government even if its postal authority and printer had already accepted the print.

Tibet

Tonight, the Olympic Flame arrived in Paris in order to, tomorrow, Monday 6 April 2008, be transported around the streets of the French capital. Polemics did arise over the nature of the politic regimen of the People's Republic of China. Today, in London, it was a vivid polemic in the streets. Tomorrow, the Journal du dimanche newspaper told of an "200 meter long 'hermetic bubble' around the Flame holder", understand a motorcade, police patrols, and around thirty vehicles full of CRS men (the French gendarms responsible of containing and/or repressing demonstrations. Plus: survey of the Seine river, of Paris air space and of the sidewalks along the race permanently.

Personally, my mind has been rubik'scubing my mind: why are the Chinese people not authorized to see the Flame coming to their cities, villages and countries? I imagine that they are so a generous people that they prefer sacrifice their pleasure and offer it to the world. I can not even think a sole milli-second that their government deprived them voluntarily. [Correction: a relay is previewed inside China, between May to August.]

Waiting the Olympic Games, Tibet was an independent state until its invasion by Chine in the 1950s. Its postal system used postage stamps from 1911. First, Chinese ones overprinted with a new value in three languages, then two series in 1913 and 1933 depicting a snowlion, celestial animal in the Tibetan culture.

To see them and learn more:
- the Government of Tibet in exile recalls its philatelic history;
- reproductions of these stamps are sold here;
- sellers propose stamps and covers from Tibet at auction website eBay;
- this collector propose an illustrated site (to admire and buy) about Asian philately, including Tibet.

Finally, to close this topic - while postal administrations are issuing full trunks of olympic stamps, if you want to be able to criticize their errors, theirs oversights, their partiality, their friendship towards merchants of the Temple or with the prince in his palace (yes, I am still talking of philately... why? you thought I was writing about television firms !?), journalists have be free to do their job well or not, and the public's critic mind have to be educated and able to serach for intelligences.

This is not possible every where in the world. Help them to impose the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for it can not only be a philatelic topic: Reporters Without Borders, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, Handicap International, and my apologies to others associations that merit to be quoted and put on postage stamps (in France, for example: 1991, 1998).