Week #2017.24 on SébPhilatélie

That week between 12 and 18 June 2017, nobody on the old continent can keep his eyes shut: Summer was here. And Winter was but a long-forgotten legend only the eldest spoke with glee to sceptical children who preferred to break open the fire hydrant in the burning streets of the capital...

Yes, I shouldn't bingewatch Game of Thrones during heatwave episodes :)

Monday 12 June: What's this stamp's message?!
Considering my two decade long career as French voter, I am still puzzled by the message of this stamp designed by Louis Briat in 1995.

Louis Briat's National Assembly stamp, issued 15 May 1995 (via Phil-Ouest.com).

It commemorated the bicentenary of the Directoire decree that decided the Council of Five-Hundred, the new lower chamber of the First Republic, be hosted in the Bourbon Palace, where the National Assembly sit to this day. Another stamp in 1998 marks the effective installation in the building in 1798.

But the meaning of the symbols... decided by the artist... ordered or accepted by the political and postal authorities...?

After two decades of political despair in front of my democracy, I concluded that the nightly blue palace kept Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People prisoner of the political elite.

Now, under the current Macronmania, I'm thinking that the People entered the sleepy palace to set the old political world ablaze... Not very Emmanuel Macron that idea... Is it a premonition of what would happen if he failed considering some of the new deputies: Le Pen and Mélenchon.

Tuesday 13 June: No stamp at the Oaxaca post office. What of the Museum?
I receive a holiday postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico. The sender was sad that no postage stamp was available at the post office of this city, famous for precolombian archeological settlements.

A Mexican counter label, 12 April 2017. The postcode 68001 corresponds to the current set of codes for Oaxaca city and state (thank you Sophie).

At least, it makes me get interested in the MUFI, the Museum of Philately, located in Oaxaca. Its website and Twitter account are quiet interesting to browse and follow.

Will this little fish stand still in his stamp? (MUFI's Twitter page, June 2017).

For example, yesterday Friday 23, the MUFI opened an exhibition on water and the sealife, displaying stamps of fishes like in an aquarium. And collectors of missing colors would like the little animation the MUFI team published with a Singapore 1960s error.

Wednesday 14 June: Uninspired stamps of France...
The article in French is the evil kin of the one published the same day in English.

While touristic stamps of France are often wonderful, inspired and sometimes looks innovative in treatment, commemorative anniversary are sometimes dull.

Why engraved a phi letter in the hand of a Queen of France? Fun with or against collectors? Or, I wish, an angry gesture by an engraver fed up by adding this stupid symbol on all commemorative stamps of France since 2010? I'm afraid the answer will be the former.

The main part of the article are about the centenary of the Lions Club. Too many postal operators just copy-paste the anniversary's or the organisation's logo. And have the gods of philately and good taste mercy for Monaco...

Simple designs yes, but useful design for the Lions Club (Jersey Stamps webshop).

Praise by Jersey Stamps! At least, this often accused of issuing too costly and useless stamps issued a six stamp series that explains what is a Lions Club for.

Thursday 15 June: Universal Mail stamp puzzled a French Muggle family.
A family from Nantes received a postcard from the son's friend visiting London.

The postcard and its many labels (Presse Océan).

The local newspaper Presse Ocean showed the card on 15 June explaining the problem and even that the French post couldn't explain it.

Philatelists will recognize a Universal Mail UK stamp, the private post that aimed at tourists' international postcards.

The sending family bought a booklet at any commodities in central London, but not a post office. Universal Mail franked card can be dropped in a Royal Mail box. At the sorting center, these cards are gathered and given back to Universal Mail that forwards them by anyway at the lower cost possible.

In this case, early April, the chosen route was lenghthy in distance and time: through Praha, Czech Republic. Hence the postage paid label with the Czech Post's logo.

Saturday 17 June: Royal June of travels.
Is it the Royal Philatelic Society London's June activities? Or my Summer-is-coming state of mind? For the second year in a row, I got travel inspired by the June articles and displays at 41 Devonshire, London.

I could only invite you to check the summary of the June issue of The London Philatelist, the last edited by Steve Jarvis, and the collection and talk by Frank Walton, his last as President of the society.

Weeks #2017.02 and 03 on SébPhilatélie

Tuesday 10 January: a conference on mail during the conquest of Ethiopia by fascist Italy.

On Sunday 8th at the Montpellier philatelic association, Serge Magallon from the Béziers club proposed a conference on Ethiopia.

One of the military stationery presented: the sender colored the Italian East Africa in red and celebrated the victory... dateed of the 14th year of the Mussolinian régime (collection Serge Magallon, Montpellier, 8  January 2017).

After an introduction on the most famous peoples and facts of the African country, he presented letters and military postcard stationery from May 1936, the month Italian troops sent by Benito Mussolini conquered Ethiopia. Soldiers whose fascist enthusiam is easily found on their postcard to family.

The paper permits to recall the privileged postal and railway link between Ethiopia and Djibouti: mail to the French colonial post were franked as interior mail until the Italian civil post started.

Serge Magallon's one frame collection can be viewed on the Montpellier association website.

L'Histoire. Les collections n°74.

The week after, French monthly L'Histoire published a special issue on the history of Ethiopia from the Queen of Sheba to King Haile Selassie, not forgetting the tragic dictatorship after him.

Wednesday 11 January: 2nd cute Postcrossing stamp for Belarus.

The stamp is autoadhesive with straight lined separatione (Postcrossing  website blog).

The SebPhilately Postrossing catalogue was of course updated.

Monday 16 January: they still stamp their mail!

Two examples of recent mail that show that non-collectors are still using postage stamps and written correspondence.

First a professional sent a colleague a large file franked with four French lottery stamps. Another cover bears a simple red Marianne with the current anonymous cancel of France but it was sent by my nephew during his sky class: teachers bought psotcards, kids wrote messages and all is enclosed in the addressed and stamped covers provided by parents.

There is hope.

Wednesday 18 January: Still a Greek letter as the symbol of the French Republic on stamps...

One of the Friday 20 January issue of Finland with the new postal rate symbol (press release by Posti - direct link to the shop).

... while Finland post office, Posti, decided to put a profile map of the country for interior rate and a euro currency symbol for European rate.

Saturday 21 January: the epidemic of British illustrated machine stamps still growing.

With the December addition of a Canadian test and soon the issue of machine stamp in the Netherlands and the Isle of Man, I summarize what had happened since Royal Mail and Intelligence AR laucnhed Faststamps and Post & Go in Britain in 2008.

Last year the fashion got out of hand: Madrid, Qatar and now privatised Post NL using the British system, perhaps Canada creating its own and Man may use the Irish one (to be confirmed).

... while in France the machine stamp haven't changed since 2000...

Week #2016.44 on SébPhilatélie

Monday 31 October: odd-centered cancels on Postcrossing mail.
When you receive a card through the Postcrossing's postcard blind-exchange, there is always something suprising: in the sender's message, the stamps chosen, of course the postcard illustration... or how it was cancel at the start.

If a Canadian postmen checked this card at the sorting office and didn't put out his pen: thank you.

Mid-October three successive cards amplified the problem: at first a nice Dutch round datestamp for three stamps..., then a neatly applied round datestamp with waves of Finland missing the upper right corner... and finally these Canadian stamps untouched by machine cancellation or a pen.

I get a summary of Canada history, nature and symbols, at correct postage, but with no postmark. Hopefully, I don't do uncancelled stamp contraband :)

Wednesday 2 November: cod and magpie at Philataipei 2016.
When you can't travel to an international stampshow, you're happy to find reports in philatelic magazines and testimonies on stamp forums, like Australian-based StampBoards.com members on Philataipei 2016.

The Atlantic Cod stamp and his three dimension aspect as shown by Posta (Posta website). 

One member of this forum proposed pictures of the exhibit by security printer Cartor (based in France, owned by a British group) to explain how it produced the Faroese issue on the Atlantic cod with actual cod skin stuck on the stamps.

A good way to discover the work of Icelandic company Atlantic Leather, that produces nice things with leathered fish skin.

Another member, not from Taiwan, explained how the stamp with value on-demand distributor works in the Republic of China. The machine doesn't give change back, but the value you ask for plus another stamp with the value of the change (need a 5 dollar postage, paid with a 10 dollar coin, equal two 5 dollar stamps).

Thursday 3 November 2016: why subscribing to a stamp club in Quebec.
On 25 Septembre 2015, TVCL, a community tv channel of the Laurentides region of Quebec, Canada, proposed a nice and educative talkshow on stamp collecting and the interest of stamp clubs by three members of local clubs.

In French, free view on demand there and on Vimeo.

Saturday 5 November 2016: From plane to optic fiber, Fiji at the center of the Pacific.
From an envelope bought in October, a little text on the central role of Fiji in airways and internet connections for the Pacific countries, including French overseas collectivity of Wallis and Futuna.

The air and floral postage from Fiji to France in 1976.

Sunday 6 November 2016: The mysteries of Serua and Mary in Fiji.
Another Fiji cover from the same recipient in France and two topics.

A very touristic, though christian, postage from Fiji to France in 1983.

A touristic one with the definitive stamp on Serua island (and its mysterious poles in the sea) and a christian one by the 1982 Christmas stamp and the sender, St Mary's Convent - from the Marist Sisters arrived in Fiji in 1892?

Elsewhere in France: 
In the November 2016 issue of L'Écho de la timbrologie (available on printed or digital subscription) the Director of the French philatelic service announced there will be a second Paris-Philex in 2018. Yes in France the national stamp show is announced by the postal operator... Must be a question of artihmetics.

Week #2016.13 on SébPhilatélie

Monday 28 March: the end of La Poste UK.

When you are a Stamp Magazine subscriber in France, receive it brings you a contemporary post paid printed sheet. Since January 2015 the British subsidiary of the French and Swiss posts served the magazine to France under a return address "La Poste UK"...

But this brand stopped 2012 when it become Asendia after the merger with the Swiss and some British marketing mail managers. By March 2016, the return address is finally corrected.

Wednesday 30 March: An Post's museum and Easter Rising Centenary event.

Part of the stories into RTÉ, the public radio and television network of Ireland, latest documentary on the Great Post Office of Dublin is the building and opening of  a new cultural place to celebrate the Easter Rising of 1916.

Witness History, that's the place, is now open and its website live.

And don't forget the Postal Museum and Archive, located in the same building.

Thursday 31 March: Postcrossing and the beautiful cancellation.

For a decade now, the cancellation by the French post are inkjet printed and do no more display any places: nor the place of mailing, neither the sorting plant...

Posted in Béziers... or 24585A. Promise!

If you want traditional round cancel, you need to send a parcel, stick stamps on it and hope for a postal-able postal clerk: an example.

Received through Postcrossing, a French born most famous Indian entepreneur and aviator, J.R.D. Tata, cencelled in Mumbai, 9 March 2016.

Or participate to Postcrossing and receive cards from many countries that allow you to learn by reading a cancel.

Sunday 3 April: British success in Madrid, fear of collapse in London.

While Ian and John Billings reported on the new Intelligence AR stamp distributor (Post & Go) to be launch by Correos at a Madrid philatelic show late April, StampBoards.com participants have been following the collapse of the share value of Stanley Gibbons since the group bought marketplace website BidStart.

The drop is so deep, many are afraid the catalogue and edition side of the British philatelic monument could be lost with the superfluous part of the ship. Hopefully the cameronite rats-captains would find a way to save themselves before that.

Datamatrix in Costa Rica

While the French post has begun to place barcode in a data matrix fashion on many of its franking, including definitive postage stamps for the European and Worldwide rates, I wish for a world history of this new numeric tool on mail.

Precancel stamp printed on demand for a postcard from Costa Rica to France, dated 3rd March 2016.

Because the first on this way might not be a more developed country. Thank to Lorena on her Postcrossing card, I get a precancel stamp printed on a counter machine at a Correos de Costa Rica branch.

France is in the zone 3 of this postal operator's rates and it cost six hundreds colones, a little less than one euro.

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.

Finally, got some!

A little less than one year and a half after their introduction, some British labels arrived to me thank to Julia Lee of Stamp Magazine.

5,5 per 2,5 centimeters of Royal grace... thank you, mister Machin.

With the code (and Brian Sinnott), I could retrieve where this stamp was bought.

High Street Post Office, Croydon (Google Street View).

009013 designated the three Wincor-Nixdorf machines of High Street Post Office branch in Croydon, southern London. Very logical because Stamp Magazine's editorial offices are located on the 233, five hundreds meters further on the same street.

These three machines have been in service since November 10th, 2009. For this stamp, machine #3 served for its first service provided to its 5662th client session.

Post & Go for dumbs

Ah! Philatelic investigation! Listen to the rumors, go check them in post offices, eye lots of stamp sheets... opposing to waiting the information being published in the Official Monitor of the French Philately.

Reporter Brian Sinnott came back with sreenshots of the Post & Go automates, as a how-to-use-it for others.

Alway a summary ici, or wait for the monthly "Machin Watch" in Gibbons Stamp Monthly, whose author John M. Deering is lucky (compared to a French author) to put such detailed intels on British definitive postage in such short time (maximum two or three months, due to the dead line of the magazine printing).

Trick at Ludgate Circus: hop not here, hop it there

The attentive readers of Timbres magazine #100 (April 2009, pages 90-92) and of this blog (here is the memory fountain) know that Royal Mail finally launched an automatic stamp and label delivery system, despite the epic defiance of its employees. Since 8 October 2008, at Bristol, and little by little in some cities, Nixdorf's ProPostal 2000 machines have been delivering Post and Go labels for weighted items and Faststamps figuring the eternal Machin effigy.


Brian Sinnott continues to follow the machines' advance and the collection of this stamps. Follow carefully, you, futur philatelic tourists to London!

At the Ludgate Circus post office (code 024003 on stamp), 16-18 New Bridge Street, in London center, facing Blackfriars station, the machine ceased its function. It sold labels and stamps from 15 October 2008 au 22 April 2009. Cause : the office closed despite petitions from people and firms of this business district. The City of London provided a list of three surviving offices.

To partially replace this office, turn at the corner into Tudor Street. A anonym door will open you a space of complete autonomy, no postal clerck in sight, but four machines in function as soon as 20 April with the 242007 code.


Obviously, collectors quickly understood the value of Ludgate Circus machine stamps: a little bit more than six months of existence for its code... £$€...

But, be careful, the inaugural case of Bristol created perfide desire. Having bought stamps in Bristol and having at disposal a datestamp, some malignant people are trying to sell first day covers bearing machine stamp older then the 8 October and a cancellation distant from Bristol.


To avoid deception, you have to understand the stamp code printed at the bottom, very useful when collectionite struck you in time of speculation, watch here:
- number of the office,
- number of the machine inside the office,
- number of the machine's session,
- number of the transaction during this session.
Same thing on the Post and Go labels.


Merry is the subject
of Elisabeth
for not he knows
French pallor.

It's everywhere!

The eternal effigy of the British monarchy under the reign of Elizabeth II is everywhere.

Sold in its original plaster form, I should have had more than fifteen thousands pounds sterling to buy it.

For a more mass-consumption (and to help close faster more post offices), the machine version with value indicator printed on demand walked its first steps this week. A member of the Virtual Stamp Club braved technical and fellow collectors hazards, including devilous postal clercks to obtain the new stamps at the Ludgate Circus post office. In the financial district of the City, in the heart of London, this office is surprisingly one of those the Royal Mail is wanting to close in the United Kingdom.

(google.co.uk)

Finally, even Google used the legendary effigy to commemorate the visit of its British offices by the Queen and her husband.

Long is the wait
Until I travel again
To the head of the Britain

To own a machin

To have one thousand pounds sterling in advance on my nowadays and future projects, or with a museum budget, be able to buy one of Arnold Machin's artwork that became the definitive series in use since 1967 in the United Kingdom.

Lot 73 to be auctioned by Cuttlestones, on 1st October 2008.

Dominique Stephan wrote about it, and about a sketch declared from 1967, certainly one of the seventy proposals that Douglas Muir dated January 1966 in its A Timeless Classic (some are reproduced pages 125 to 128). Don Schilling completes with an article from The Telegraph: this plaster is one of the only four known of this design... the other three been in the Royal Mail archives.

Ten thousand pounds...


Breaking News :
A rumor in Stamp Magazine dated October 2008 announced a new Machin for October, but Royal Mail refused to say more. The Postage Labels of the UK blog by Brian Sinnott is showing that the effigy by Arnold Machin is now printing on British machine stamps. In France, we are still on pale blue and yellow...

A former British machine stamps here and there.

Ametlla de Mar

A little sunshine during this cold Spring in Paris: Ametlla de Mar, a port in Southern Catalonia, saw this machine stamp passing.

With a pictorial cancellation for a postal service.

Elizabeth II on machine stamp, next on postage meter?

Between 1984 and 1985, automates sold stamps which value was printed on demand of the user, in some post offices. The stamp was one like this one:



Queen Elizabeth II's profile is the one used on British commemorative stamps, designed by Arnold Machin from his definitive serie effigy.

There is no machine stamps in this country. This may explain why philatelists are fearing the postage meter, called Horizon labels : available since 2002, they are blank piece of paper with just enough printed intels to post a mail (value, brand, date, number of the printing counter).

Stamp Magazine of January 2008 announced that a new design will be inaugurated in the first weeks of 2008, including a graphic element for security purpose. May the British have better than pale yellow on pale blue design...

Copa del Rey de baloncesto on Spanish machine stamps

While in my France, machine stamps are often the same (pale) blue-yellow kinds, the Spanish Correos has generalized illustrated stamp machines. It even has got a philatelic program : see the etiquetas issued since 1997 on the Correos' site.
This two etiquetas used at a post office desk (since printed with the date of use) used the same illustrations about the Copa del Rey of basket-ball. I found them already separated, but at the same stamp dealer in the passage des Panoramas.

Dated on the same day (27 March 2000), they must have been used on the same letter (I wish I could have in its entire... snif). They franked a 17 gramms recorded letter, certainly from Spain to France : 705 pesetas for the expeditor (nowadays 4,24 € at the final official pesetas/euros rates).

Thanks to those who can tell me in which towns I can find the churches visible in the background ?

ATM stamps of France : blue... very pale.

I have already spoken of ATM stamps with an exemple found in Brussels. I said that it was surprising for a French to see machine stamps like that : colorfoul, illustrated and different depending on the town and time of year. But, I know it is the case in a lot of countries like you can see on the Gulfmann ATM Collection blog written by a Taiwanese collector. ATM, in English for automated teller machines.

But, in France, at the post office's desk or at the machine, here are the possible results :

Birds and sun obtained at a post office's desk : sort of precancelled stamp.
But the background can be obtained at an ATM machine.

This background : (very) pale blue with (less very) pale yellow paper plane.

These two stamp designs are boring to me : they have been in use for so long... And when you compare them with designs from Hong Kong, Israel, Macau (a beauty), and the best: Spain where designs are illustrated and changed like the usual stamp program.

I admit you can buy illustrated ATM stamps in France : let's see them... if you have the time or the social network to be present at all the philatelic exhibitions they are issued for a short time. And please be patient while waiting in the long line.

My advice for foreign visitors of France, if you go to a post office, precise that you want postage stamps for your mail. Or there may be a pale French machine stamp on it...

Update, 15 March 2007 : a summary of the history of French machine stamps (called there LISA) on the Blog philatélie (in French).

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.