Open class fun at the Stamp Festival in Montpellier

This article adapted two articles published on the blog in French: the 8th and the 9th October 2016.

This past week end was Stamp Festival in France, with a two item issue on dance: charleston  on 0.70 € stamp and The Swan Lake on a 1.40 € minisheet. In Montpellier, the local federated association organised a free rule exhibition ; a quiet activity compared to the national competition it will host in 2019.

A small municipal exhibit room but interestingly filled (picture under a Creative Commons licence by-nc-sa 3.0 fr).

I got to read again some collections from previous events or from now known collectors. Jacques Rue shared his Type Blanc in traditional philately while Serge Magallon proposed another trip to Ethiopia, this time from the Italian military post during the Second Italian-Abyssinian War (1935-1937) after mail and pictures from missionaries or Ethiopia's first stamps in previous times. For marcophily and regional the president Michel Soulie proposed Montpellier postal history.

A diamond mark from the machine gun company of the Francoist Valvanera Army during the Spanish Civil War (Juan Ara Somahano's collection, Journée du timbre, October 2016).

What was the major piece of the exhibit in my eye? The machine gun on a military mail from a Francoist company, presented by Juan Ara Somohano, that was in competition at Paris-Philex in May. It goes along the RPG thematic I cynically began with the help of French politician Henri Guaino last July.

Consequently, my second reading at Mr Ara Somohano's collection was by the political symbols stamped or cinderellaed on covers.

How to spice up a topical collection? Find the unimaginable stamp that nobody would be looking at (Czech post via tehe World Association for the Development of Philately's Numbering System).

In the other collections, let's congratulate J. Consejo for the post it that directed visitors to three unmissable documents in his bullfighting collection. First how err-horn-eous was the 1995 stamp on the Camargue region. Then the most hidden stamp of the topic: a Czech stamp issued September 2007 to mark the opening of the first permanent movie theater in Prague by Viktor Ponpero. Watch the screen.


The free style permitted by the non competitive nature of this exhibition was highlighted by two open class collections, way outside the Philatelic International Federation's regulations, but quite inspiring for the inventive multicollectors.

With The Civic Life, Michel Rettgen linked many collectibles papers with the aspects of daily life regulated by State and public collectivities: punched weekly tramway ticket from far ago, Mother's Day special national lottery entry, bags for doggy poop...

...

No! Come back: they are crispy unused. They hadn't been cancelled by the user :p

Another member proposed an unlisted one frame of an older collection. The philatelic core is the United States fancy cancels from the 1927-1934 period when stamps on registered letters should not be cancelled with the datestamp. To cancel the stamps, the local postmasters were creative: stars, bugs, music instruments, etc.

How to exhibit such covers, that the collector described me as "very common"?

On top of each sheet, he wrote a sentence of a complex funny "Three Mexicans story" while putting collectibles from the topic of the sentence and the fancy cancel: military badge, dead insects, oblong Chinese coin, and...

... a brothel token when the three heroes decided to cheat on their wives. What collection can be used to illustrate rolling pins? :)

The Charleston stamp by Nancy Peña, engraved by Claude Jumelet (Phil@poste via Phil-Ouest).

Really because I like my non-French readership: here is one of the two Festival stamp. I preferred to look and find some less than 10 euro covers in the boxes of two Montpellier dealers present.


Normmaly I should write you to wait until next October for a new Festival exhibition summary. But, after a revolutionary Autumn transfer, the date of the 2017 Stamp Festival is going back to late Winter, started the next 11 and 12 March.

Already, the number of participating associations was slowly decreasing: 118 in 2012 (the first Festival in Autumn) to 87 this year.

Was the change of date ill-chosen? It would be good to know what French Philatelic Service Françoise Eslinger's arguments were in 2010 when she imposed the change, and what are the current Director and the Federation President argument to change back.

Anyway, can associations manage one public event more in the Spring 2017 competitive calendar?

So: next summary in six months.

The Postcrossing stamp catalogue

Updated 14 July 2020 with the stamp of Brasil.


Since a post on May 17th, 2014, I have updated a personal stamp catalogue celebrating Postcrossing, a website to send and receive postcards among members either by chance through the site, or voluntarily through the forum if you want to exchange mail with specific countries or on specialised topics.

Don't hesitate to participate, even with a few cards per months: it's the way to ensure there will be a conteporary stamp and postal history in the decades to come. In ten years, celebrated on last July 14th, more than thirty one millions cards were sent.

The main source is the website's blog and, from there, the website of the postal operators who issued the stamps. As you are going to see hereunder, many post offices understood the interest to issue such stamps: encouraging correspondance, national and foreign philatelic orders, free publicity.

Shamefully, the French philatelic service, Phil@poste, did not... yet? Even a strict dictatorship encouraged its citizens to write and receive mail!

Since 2011 till today, twelve stamps were issued for this website by the will and lobbying of its members. What voluntary website can say that too?

Guernsey sympathetic stamp of 2014 (GuernseyStamps.com)

1. and 2.: 14 October 2011, by Post NL, Netherlands, 2 values (first class to Europe, first class to the World) issued on a minisheet of five of each (10 stamps).

3. to 6.: 9 September 2013, by Itella Posti, Finland, 4 designs at the same first class value (up to 50 grams nationwide, 20 grams to Europe and the World) printed on a minisheet.

7.: 2 January 2014, by Belpochta, Belarus, value "N" (surface postcard) in sheets of 12.

8.: 29 May 2014, Guernsey Post, one of the Channel Island and Crown Dependencies, value "Int Letter 20g" (first class to Europe and the World) : map-character of Guernsey wishing the reader a "Happy Postcrossing".

The Russian stamp, 2015.

9.: 27 January 2015, by Pochta Rosii, Russia, 23 roubles. Designed by O. Shushlebina, an envelope on globe decorated with all major European historic monuments and the Taj Mahal. Printing: 397 000.
Members from Russia constitutes the second group by country on Postcrossing with 3.5 millions postcards sent, after members from Germany.

10.: 29 May 2015, by Pošta Slovenije, Slovenia, 60 eurocents. A tourist jumping on a blond sand beach. "Summer is coming".

The Czech stamp, 2015.

11.: 2 September 2015, Česká pošta, Czech Republic, Value "E" (up to 50 grams to Europe ; "A" is nationwide, "Z" worldwide). The Postcrossing circle of correpondence designed by Portuguese artist  Maria Nogueira.

Let's remind the website was created by Paulo Magalhães, another Portuguese citizen.

The Ukrainian stamp, 2015.

12.: 9 October 2015, by Ukrposhta, Ukraine, value "E" (I'm not fluent enough in Ukrainian to find the rate...) in sheet of 16 autoadhesive stamps. Girl dressed traditionally sending her greeting from Ukraine to the world.
The stamp was issued on World Post Day, an initiative by the Universal Postal Union.

The Austrian Postcrossing stamp... A wall of bricks? (Österreichische Post via the Postcrossing blog).

13. (AUT #1): 21 March 2016 by Österreichische Post, Austria, value 80 eurocents. Designed by Robert Sabolovic (postcards and name of website in the color of the Austrian flag). Printed in offset by Joh. Enschedé Stamps B.V., 250,000 printed.

The second stamp of Russia (rusmarka.ru).

14. (RUS #2): 25 March 2016, by Pochta Rossii, Russia, value 31 rubles, sheet of 9 autoadhesive stamps by I. Sidenko. Envelope "I love Postcrossing" over landscape of different houses, with airplane and cruise ship. Print: 414 000.

Second issue for the Netherlands, 2016.

15.-24. (NLD #2): 29 March 2016, by PostNL, Netherlands, value "1 International". Sheet of ten different stamps designed by Reinier Hamel, Sin agency. Different landscape, monuments, activities and artwork of the Netherlands.

Second Guernsey issue, 2016 (guernseystamps.com).

25.-26. (GGY #2-3): 14 July 2016, by Guernsey Post, value Europe (EUR) and Rest of the world (ROW). Illustration by Sue Harmon, printed in sheets of 10 and in offset by Lowe-Martin. Depiction of the Bailliwick's islands (green), their fauna and flora, the sea waves and the sun.

Le timbre de cinq  nouveaux złotys (site de Poczta Polska).

27. (POL #1): 14 July 2016, by Poczta Polska (Poland), value 5 new złotys (PLN), printed by PWPW in minisheet of 6 with illustrated margins. Design by A. Tobolczyk: a red suitcase with touristic stickers, is in fact a mailbox to send postcards.

The second Belarus adhesive stamp issued January 2017, with no fake perforation (Postcrossing blog and Belpochta).

28. (BLR #2): 3 January 2017, by Belpochta (Belarus). Adhesive stamp value M (international airmail postcard), printed in offset in 9 stamp minisheet. Illustration by Marina Vitkovskaya.

The stamp from Romania issued February 2017 (Postcrossing blog and Romfilatelia).

29. (ROM #1): 24 February 2017, by Poșta Română (Romania). Stamp value 4 lei, printed in offset in sheets of 32 (18'000 sheets) and minisheet of 8 (1'000 sheetes). Illustration by Razvan Popescu.

The three Indonesian stamps issued July 2017 (Postcrossing blog).

30.-32. (IDN #1-3): 14 July 2017, by Pos Indonesia. Three stamps, value 3,000 rupees, illustrating travels through correspondence.

The three stamps of Switzerland Postcrossing blog, 28 July 2017).

33.-35. (CHE #1-3): 7 September 2017, by Swiss Post. Three stamps, values 1 franc (national rate), 1,50 franc (European rate) and 2 francs (worldwide). Designs by Max Spring illustrating Swiss people receiving a postcard and people of the continent and the world receiving traditions of Switzerland on postcards.

The Irish stamp (via the Postcrossing blog, 4 October 2017).

36. (IRL #1): 5 October 2017, by An Post. One stamp valued 1.35 euro (international rate) figuring five young peoples and other people's arms sending and receiving many postcards ; a design by Cathy Dineen.
Note: Irish postcrossers appeared in a documentary on the General Post Office in Dublin, broadcast by RTÉ in March 2016.

The stamp from Hungary (Magyar Posta website).

37. (HUN #1): 2 February 2018, by Magyar Posta. One stamp valued 120 forints (2 domestic rates: non-priority postcard or standard letter under 30 grams) figuring a postman on bicycle happily delivering postcards. With landmarks of Budapest in the background: the Danube river, the Liberty Bridge and Liberty Statue. Design by Zsolt Vidàk and printed in offsetin 60,000 minisheets of four stamps.

The stamp from Moldova (Postcrossing blog and the Moldovan Post's philatelic website).

38. (MDA #1): 23 June 2018, by Poșta Moldovei. One stamp valued 11 lei (international prioritary postcard to Europe ; almost worldwide non prioritary rate - 11,50 L) figuring a person travelling upon the globe on paths made of circulating postcards and letters. Design by Lilian Iatsko and printed in 120,000 in sheets of ten.

The stamp of land (Postrossing blog and Åland Post's philatelic website).

39. (ALA #1) : 7 June 2019, by Åland Post. One stamp valued "Världen" (worldwide postage ; 1.80 euro then). And indeed, a red world map, centered on the Atlantic Ocean, is included inside a heart-shaped stamp of light violet color. The Postcrossing name is written accross like by hand. The heart is included a perforated square, 3.8 cm of side. Design by Cecilia Mattsson, and printed in offset by Cartor Securiry Printing, in sheets of 28 stamps, in four columns of 14 separeted by 7 decorated labels on the correspondence topic.

The Brasilian stamp (Postcrossing blog).

40. (BRA #1) : 14 July 2020, by Correios (Brasil)). One stamp valued 2.45 reais. Illustration by Daniel Lourenço of São Paulo: two young people, living in different places as noted by monuments in corners, reading the postcards they exchange. This stamp is issued at time for the 15th birthday of Postcrossing.


To be continued of course (and completed when I find the pictures missing).

Happy Postcrossing to you too!

Czech vintage

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".