Missent to Philippines

After EFOs found by chance, today original covers that post administrations create without being asked. And always : it's when you don't look for that you find.

End of June 2006, I read an article by French Polynesia philatelist Christian Beslu about missent letters, published in Timbres magazine #70 (the link directs you to the on-line articles in French, including this one). These covers journeyed through surprising places outside the regular path, and received a mark at the office to explain the delay : « MISSENT TO » and the name of the country.

During a journey with his sino-vietnamese parents, a French friend sent me one letter from Macau, one from Hong Kong and a third from the People's Republic of China. Before leaving, when I brief him on philatelic matter, I showed him the article. He makes fun by saying that one of the three could have the mark. With my luck, no chance !

Late August, after a small number of days of postal travel, arrived the letter of Macau, then of China... but nothing from Hong Kong, who letter has got a 2002 definitve stamp of 3 dollars bearing a security perforation on the right and left side (the one on the left is visible on the scan above). And all his friends received quickly their HK letters. Doubt entered my mind...

Conclusion : early September, I had got a missend letter to Philippines while moving from Hong Kong to Paris. « CMEC » stands for « Central Mail Exchange Center », in Pasay City (Manilla).

Why Philippines... I haven't find yet.

Errors, freaks, and oddities on definitive stamps

While Eric is talking about factual errors on his blog (orthograph, mistakes like Christopher Colombus watching Indies through a not-so-soon-created spy-glass), it gives me the idea to write something about errors, freaks and oddities (EFO ; in French : les variétés). Something that happens accidentely during the printing process : red instead of blue, the disparition of a colour because of missing ink, no perforation or not the perforation normally used, etc.

Large subject when you read this discussion between French collectors in december 2006 : how did these EFOs manage to get out ? Tired controllers ? Fraud since their value can be important on the market ? Some are falsifications, using professional chimic means and restoration techniques. And of course, those who are blamed in the end : the stamp dealers and the experts who signed the EFOs when a costlier certificate may be better on the long-term to proof the EFOs is genuine.


Back to pleasure since we are philatelists for that : what can you do ?

First idea : examine those presented in magazines and by dealers, then you study how they could have appeared. Excellent training to learn the postage stamp printing process.

Alternative (quite hazardous) : go without thinking to the post office and buy for your mail some definitive stamps of low values. On the left, what I found like this next year : five 10 eurocents Marianne des Français with a little too much ink. It's very clear on top of the title's letters and on the money denomination.

Morale :
Look for them when you need to learn.
Forget them and you'll find.

From Women to Flowers, definitive series in Germany

Since January 2005, Deutsche Post sell only one definitive stamp series : the Flowers series. The close-up of the flower itself on white paper are designed by Stefan Klein and Olaf Neumann. For example, this 90 eurocents narcissus, issued January 2005 :

The close-ups pleases the eye. Here is a self-adhesive stamp with an imitated stamp separation. You can say it is a self-adhesive stamp because the separation is a straight line while perforated one presents some paper fibers after the separation of two stamps.


But this series makes me regret of the two former series : Women in German history (1986-2003).

1 mark figuring actress Therese Giehse, issued in1988.

Bicolored, the stamps are engraved by Gerd Aretz, a Wuppertal university teacher. 56 stamps were issued followaing the postal tarriffs' evolutions and the German and European geopolitic ones : 17 stamps for West-Berlin, 26 mentionning « Deutsche Bundespost » (18 for FRG and 8 after the Reunification), 13 with the brand « Deutschland », included 4 with a pfenning/euro denomination and 4 with euro alone.

With the International Women's Day yesterday, plus the engraving versus simple photo on white, and a personal intererst in the history of these women and the politic events these stamps wear on themselves, I prefer the Women in German history series... Flowers will wait less than two weeks for the first day of Spring.

Philatelic WebTV in France

Since the end of last February, the French philatelic Timbres Magazine plays a WebTV : TV Timbres (timbre means stamp in French). Now it's only some interviews, but I think it is a good idea to broadcast the philatelic hobby to a larger public.

The double-DVD Des courriers très spéciaux (from Timbres Magazine's site)

The genesis of TV Timbres began in 2005 when Timbres Magazine's redactor-in-chief Gauthier Toulemonde decided to go post himself letters from foreign countries (letters bought by readers) during aventurous journeys and to keep a movie from it. In 2005 Mr. Toulemonde went to Clipperton Island where French adventurer Jean-Louis Étienne was studying the local ecosystem. The DVD shown above presents a trip to Russian polar station of Barneo and the difficult and usual postal round in canoe upon the Maroni River in French Guyana.

The films are amateurish, but for a first step, the idea is here and I like it very much. Plus some bonus clips : a little philatelic lesson about tropical stamps by Michel Melot (accessible on TV Timbres), a day with engravor Pierre Albuisson.

Since I didn't know the former French show Télé-Philatélie of Jacqueline Caurat et Jacques Mancier, TV Timbres is the very first philatelic show I discover and I have always dreamt to watch a Daguin machine functioning.

TV Timbres' clips are viewable on Timbres Magazine's website.

Verigar : the first stamp of Slovenia

In Slovenia, the first stamp issued specially for this former yougoslavian country is the Verigar issue, representing a slave cutting his chains (they are told in veriga in slovenian).

The blue-green 15 heller.

Even before the end of World War One, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed at the automn 1918. Many independantist parties took power and the independance of their dreamed countries. South Slavic parties began with the State of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (« Država SHS » on the stamp, the same in cyrillic at its top). The 1st December 1918, the State became a Kingdom under the reign of Peter, king of Serbia. Finally, in 1929, it changed name for Yugoslavia that it bears until the independences' wars at the beginning of the 1990's.

The Verigar issue is created loccaly in Ljubljana, main Slovenian town, at the end of 1918. The painter Ivan Vavpotič (1877-1943) drew it and two kinds are printed : small and vertical long. But, when issue came early 1919, the stamp had got an error since the country was no more the one printed on it.

Complementary link :
* un scan libre de droit du 15 heller.

Reminder :
About another first stamp of a country born at the end of the Great War, read article "The Prague Castle".

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.

Round stamp from Morocco

Today, a round stamp from Morocco that I found in a box full of stamps on fragments at a stamp dealer in the Passage des Panoramas, in Paris.
The WNS site (index of the UPU and the WADP, completed by the postal administrations themselves) gives us the issue date of 31st of October 2003 for the "Solidarity Week". Its search engine shows us that this is a yearly series of round stamp and of photographs depicting king Mohammed VI acting with solidarity. Finally, the Morocco Post's website in French explains that the Mohammed V Foundation for the solidarity works to help poor people in the country.

The round form and the perforations (4 holes on the right and left of the holes of the stamp itself) remains me of somethin French collectors know very well : this round stamp was printed by the ITVF (French public postage stamps and fiduciary values printer). ITVF initials appears on the stamp (nowadays look for his new name since 2006 : Phil@poste). In 1998, ITVF created systems of perforation to make stamp round. The first one was issued in France for the Soccer World Cup. It has quickly proposed it to his usual post client and visibly Morocco Post adopts it well.

In France, after this success (48 millions of '98 round stamps sold) and certainly to make profit of the new machines, ITVF has regularly been asking by La Poste to print yearly heart stamps for Valentine's Day since 1999, and oval ones for Rugby World Cup. French territories' post did the same.

So remember to look at the printer's name (if visible), it helps sometimes to understand how postal administrations prepared their stamps.

Martin Mörck, mastering the art of offset-intaglio

The 7th of June 2006, Post Danmark issueed what I value as one of the most beautiful series I have seen, whereas the car race theme let me indifferent. It showed pictures of a ancient car race in Copenhagen, with four stamps.

Technically speaking, I am marked bu the perfect union of the photograph printed in offset and the engraving. The latter gives the aspect of the ancient engravings that we can find in papers published in the19th and 20th centuries, especially for the 4,75 kroner. The two printing techniques are not there only to supply the other's defects ; they are litteraly married.

The artist responsible of this success is Martin Mörck from Norway, who is celebrating in 2007 the 30 years of his first issued stamp : a "tawny owl" (Strix aluco) for Sweden. You can regularly see his talent on new stamps from Denmark, Faroe Islands, Monaco and Sweden.

Complementary links :
* to Martin Mörck's site ;
* to Post Danmark's shop tested with success by Eric.

Stamp and paper mail forgotten ?

I received recently an advert mail about the realease of a new version of the DivX software. Not very philatelic, but on the upper banner, it showed this image :

A cancelled stamp with (as we say in France) a advert "flamme" on the corner of a brown cover. The imitated stamp respects the conventions : place for value, name of country and a legend on the bottom. If e-mail and SMS win the market of communications between people, it seems that good old paper mail always marks the imaginery.

Hommage to Kennedy

Since I haven't got a strong will to a thematic collection, other than a "I like-I don't like-Have I the room for it ?" policy, I usually take little time in front of stamp sellers' stands during philatelic exhibitions... with some exception such as this enveloppe :


During the 2004 Salon du timbre in Paris, I looked at a business specialized in covers. Stamp collectors asked for a topic or a country, and hop, from the wall full of boxes, appeared quickly an amount of covers waiting to be studied and sold.

At this time, I was looking for a first day cover of the first hommage to Kennedy US stamp, so I asked for covers about the assassinated president and finished to find this cover and its stamps and cancellations.


This commemorative enveloppe for the anniversary of JFK's death is ornated with two cancellations illustrated by the eternal flame that is burning at his tomb, as on the US stamp that quoted a sentence of his inaugural speech :

The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world... and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

The German stamp on the right is from West-Berlin, issued by the Deutsche Bundespost from the design of the Western German ones. But he is cancelled in Wiesbaden, Land of Hesse, in Western Germany. The american cancellation is a military one, from the Army and Air Force Postal Service and wear the code number APO 633. After a quick Google search, it corresponds at this time to a base in Wiesbaden.

A French collector is selling a similar cover on ebay (his announce), but you can see the careful placing of the stamps is not the same. Furthermore, the German stamp is clearly a Western one on this cover, not a Berliner one. These differences means many questions and I think I alone am far from the answer, but I don't regret this acquisition.