Week #2016.11 on SébPhilatélie

A week of wandering of my mind... even in philately.

Monday 14th March: a red postcard, nice for a quiz.
Just a card received from Germany thank to Postcrossing.

Red stamps by http://www.wildepixel.com/.

Can you identify all this modern red stamps?

Friday 18th March: when French politicians become delusional...
One of the French philatelic haven, the Kerguelen islands in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands become famous this Wednesday after a conservative right politician proposed on newsradio to arrest without due process every Frenchmen coming back from Syria and isolate them in the Kerguelens...

Stay tune for the new postal history of the French penitentiary colony revival.

Saturday 19th March: regional exhibition in Montpellier.
The local association organised in Montpellier the regional congress of Languedoc and Roussillon with a four dealer and almost thirty collection event.

Part of those collections I found interest in were already exhibited last year at the annual Spring show in May or at the Stamp Festival last October. But I didn't mind a new look at Claude Pesche's postal history of the Jerusalem post offices from the Ottoman Empire to 1948... How many "philatelic countries" could there be in a city or a region?

Two tickled my curiosity by reshaping known stamps or knowledge into something unusual. J. Paraseit studied the postal history of La Réunion during the franc CFA currency period (1945-1975) with overprinted stamps of France and he proposed covers cancelled by the travelling post office on the sole and now closed railway of the Indian Ocean island.

Back in France, J. Ara Somohano exhibited covers sent, received by or linked to the Spanish Republicans who took refuge in France after the Retirada ; many covers addressed to internment camp where the French Republic and then Fascist France put them.

Finally, in the court of honor, a guest from sister-region Midi-Pyrénées, Henri Taparel proposed a two time Grand Vermeil collection and lesson on the postal rates of Communist Russia from 1917 to 1923, a time of civil war and economic difficulties. Imagine the government telling you a one kopek stamp is now worth a ruble without overprints!

Mr. Taparel's presentation is highlighted by introductive text placed at the date of new rates to explain what was happening at the time of decision. Something some departemental and regional exhibited collections have trouble to perform on their first two pages (no bibliography or a personal pensum) or as a conclusion. I hope to see it again elsewhere, but you can grasp part of the Russian specialist's knowledge on his personal website.

Sunday 20th March: coin collectors should avoid those.
In French specialised magazine L'Histoire of March 2016, France National Library coin and medal curator Jérôme Jambu analyses the coins of the Islamic State/Daesh/ISIS, that were announced in November 2014 and seems to circulate since June 2015.

He presents the announced characteristics of the coins and the meaning of them in history and propaganda context of the djihadist organisation. Because all coins who were studied in Europe are all faulty to the announced norms, it is supposed that Daesh is creating only faulty described coins to trade them and gain world strong currencies...

To Mr. Jambu, as for oil and archeological items smuggling, buying these coins is helping to finance terrorism.

The postmen of Mafate, heroes of La Réunion

From an article on SébPhilatélie, remastered, published Thursday February 6th 2014.

If you are interested on postal services in the French Overseas, La Réunion has got legendary postmen: the ones whose rounds took days of walking to reach the isolated settlements in the island's calderas. The inhabitants of the Cirque of Mafate continues to receive mail thank to this walking postman.

Watch for reruns on France 1ère and France Ô, both public channels who broadcasted in overseas territories for the former and to the Metropolitan French public for the latter: an example on March 2013 on Réunion 1ère. Reporter Jacques Pavet followed current postman Cyril Maillot walking 30 kilometers a day through mountain paths, tropical forests and plains, carrying fifteen to twenty kilograms of mail, banknotes to serve the inhabitants or any necessary packets (medicine, lottery tickets,...).

Bat'ker, Le Facteur de Mafate, 2008, album: Lé Gadianm (clip on youTube posted by Booster Label).

The postmen of Mafate are part of the folklore réunionnais, an island reputed in Metropolitan France among hikers. In 2008, Bat'ker, a band of La Réunion, wrote and performed a song and a clip, Le Facteur de Mafate. The website Réunionnais du monde published an interview with Irvin Pausé, postman from 1951 to 1991, who estimated he had walked five times around the Earth with the Mafate rounds.

These walking postmen are presented from time to time on national television in France like an episode of Faut pas rêver, a geographic documentary on France 3 in 1995, or a side-report in the mid-day news on TF1 in May 2012 with Cyril Maillot's predecessor and a meeting with retired Irvin Pausé in his shop. An important enough subject so that Angelo Thiburce, who walks in another sector of Mafate, has got a page on the Wikipedia  in French after his retirement.

But, because La Réunion is an overseas département, the stamps of Metropolitan France have been used since départementalisation in 1947. And no stamp on the postmen of the Cirques has been issued yet.

Week #2016.09 on SébPhilatélie

Two articles of the French blog weren't translated or adapted here this past week. Here are summaries.

Wednesday March 2nd: The Crawford Library soon in the comfort of your home.
The March issue of The London Philatelist was sent with a supplement on the Crawford Library wrriten by British Library retired curator David Beech. He summarized the life and bibliophile generous passion of James Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford - he gave his libraries of astronomy and philately to the nation.

Ex-libris of the Bibliotheca Lindesiana, commonly known as the Crawford Library or libraries (around 1900).

But the main parts of the booklet is how the Curator worked on the preservation of the Crawford Library from 1983 when he started his career at the Philatelic Collections of the British Museum, collections later moved into a new institution and building, the British Library.

On 30 May 2016 the next stage will be launched at the International Stamp Show in New York: a large part of the Crawford Library will be available on-line through the Royal Philatelic Society London managed Global Philatelic Library.

Wait for the red "British Library" sign, but for now you can look into the catalogue. It's believed the Library contains 95% of all philatelic publications of all kind by the beginning of the 20th century... Wait...

Addendum on Thursday 24th March 2016: The London Philatelist supplement can be read as a pdf file through the Global Philatelic Library website.


Saturday March 5th 2016: The mysterious Indian Ocean Philatelic Meetings.
Always named in French it seems, the Rencontres philatéliques de l'océan Indien are largely known to French and British Commonwealth through the 2014 joint issue between six postal countries: remember the turtle?

The six stamps put together in a commemorative document by the French philatelic service (scan by timbredujura.blogspot.fr).

Host to the 6th Rencontres, the French Southern and Antarctic Territories (TAAF) managed to create this issue, sure to be available in France (that is Mayotte and Réunion in the Indian Ocean), at the TAAF postal service to the scientific bases, and the Seychelles Postal Service. Postal agencies' websites of the Comoros aimed at financial and phone services, the one of Madagascar is trying to work since its birth late 2015...

Yesterday, I decided to resolve a problem: what are these Rencontres? What happened in the first five? Was there a 7th meeting in 2015?

Read the Google-only result on the French blog: it seems the idea of a French association, Association philatélique de l'océan Indien, succeeded beyond expectation. I managed to find intelligence about the Rencontres on French overseas départements and in Mauritius: school children and the general public were invited to discover philately through other domains of knowledge on the Indian Ocean nations' cultures and history, while the postal operators discussed cooperation between them.

I hope to find or read more about these Meetings.

Chandanson and Brun exploring Réunion's two first stamps history

This week, I finally got enough time and mind to read Les Deux Premiers Timbres-poste de l'île de la Réunion. Légendes et réalité de Jean-François Brun et Benoît Chandanson [The Two First Postage Stamps of the Island of La Réunion].

As promised in Chandanson's archivistic teaser published in Col.Fra, October 2008, the study quotes many documents from archives, described with accuracy, and confront them with the articles and books written by philatelists about these two local stamps. The numbers of stamps printed, sold and still existing are at the heart of the problematic.

The careful study of archives is a very formative work, that shapes a critic spirit and the capacity to find pertinent problematics. Mister Chandanson came back from it with precious knowledges.

But, to me, the most exciting part was the stamps and letters illustrated repertory. Exciting thank to the notes on some "metamorphosis" that happened on some pieces:
- cropping the margins... certainly for aesthetic purposes ;
- dividing a pair... so thirsty for money ;
- a detached stamp sticked on a letter with ressembling ink traces or with redrawing the marks of the pencil... is not the red line trespassed?

The madness of philatelic modes (on letter or detached?) reached paroxysm with the ninth notes (page 62). A letter was franked with a thirty centime stamp, stick in the horizontal way as a 1927 sale picture showed. In 1954, it was photographed detached. In 1980, it was back on the letter... vertically!

A very interesting reading (in French).

Une intéressante lecture.

Philatelic legends of La Réunion deconstructed

The October 2008 article was a teaser for a new book published by Jean-François Brun et Benoît Chandanson, philatelists, authors and dealers.

Les Deux Premiers Timbres-poste de l'île de la Réunion [The First Two Postage Stamps of the island of La Réunion] announces the authors' mind in its subtitle : Legends and reality. One legend was beginning to be deconstructed in Chandanson's article in Col.Fra: how many of these stamps were really printed?


Certainly a good moment of reading.

The one who looked for finds

There are yet errors to correct in the general philatelic books. Introductions of catalogues about French oversea possession of La Réunion will have to be amended because of what Benoît Chandanson found in the Departmental Archives of the island.

Dealer and author specialised in La Réunion, Chandanson just published a letter that would permit [conditional: let's critics study the new document and thesis] to precise the numbers of the first Reunion stamps that were issued for local purposes in 1852 and served until 1860. On 16 February 1852, the local director of the posts write to his colleague Director of the Interior about the incoming order of the new stamps. While catalogues Yvert and Dallay (2006-2007, page 293) has been giving a 7500 stamp printing, Chandanson's estimate by this letter is lesser and better sourced.

The document reference: 6P123, Archives départementales de La Réunion. The 6P indicates the topical ordering of the archives, here the pre-1946 départementalisation documents about "Finances. Cadastre. Posts. Credit companies."

The article: Benoît Chandanson, "Réunion 1 et 2: chiffres de tirage(s)?", ColFra #394, October 2008. ColFra is a French association specialised on all philatelic, postal, marcophil, etc. topics in the former French colonial empire.


Two ideas:
* go search the nearest local archives and see what could be about posts in there. In France, departmental archives kept the prefect's archives and some of the cities' archives (example of subjects you may find in those documents). Your local archives may have such documents as debates and petition about the building or establishment of a new post office, etc. ;
* even if some do not find them pretty, even a little bit invasive, to multiply intra reference notes let the reader know how important affirmations were assumed and which one are lacking strong proofs.