Scotch of Britain

Today, an thing absolutely essential to a good, safe, pristine contemporary philatelic collection :

scotch.

No, I'm sorry, not the whisky. The adhesive tape.

Yes, to pack books we bought on-line at a bookshop, an editor or a postal administration to insure they arrived without torn pages and with plate covers.

Here is the one used by the Royal Mail for my Douglas N. Muir's A Timeless Classic. The evolution of Machin's icon. The collectors of postal marks will be happy to recognize some british ones.

The curator of the British Postal Museum & Archive tells though the genesis of the Machin series the story of the revolution in the philatelic creation, happened in Britain in the sixties. How Postmaster General Tony Benn and artist David Gentleman launched a big transformation with the initial goal of getting rid of the Wilding portrait. Conclusions were Arnold Machin's design for definitives and a new simplier head for commemoratives.

Great book.

Culinary cancellation from Italy

A cover from Italiy with the commemorative cancellation of Castiglioncello, littoral place in Tuscany.


The stamp is one of the two Italian Europa stamps of this year, about scoutism. The nightwatch arounf the campfire was one of the major topic of the Europa series issued by postal administrations members of PostEurop alongside with the walk in forest, Lord Robert Baden-Powell and universal allegories. This illustration, in a commemorative big format, is designed by Riccardo Francaviglia et Margherita Sgarlata.

The 10 June 2007 cancellation advertises the 36th fishing party (Festa del pesce), part of the Big culinary Kermesse of the Livornese coast, one of the provinces of Tuscany.

Notes :
* thanks to Riccardo for his covers (I hope he liked the TGV Est first day cover).
* You can follow the philatelic program of Italy on the Poste Italiane's website : here for 2007.
* For commemorative cancellations, the Italian Collectors Federation helps.

First big mistake

Sorry for the moments without messages, work before summer (and parties that go with it - not at the workplace of course) explain why I am a little far of philately and my computer (and that not a bad thing sometime).

For example, it gives me time to read mail and to justify my mistakes. Yvon Nouazé alerts me and, with better attention, I told unwisely that the 1896 Oran cancellation was made by a Daguin machin. And it is not. I will rewrite the article until tomorrow sunday, in order to explain common errors on how recognize these cancellations.

Have a good week-end and beginning of Northern Hemisphere temperate summer to you.

Machin Quiz

Some philatelic blogs and forums are organizing a quiz about the Machin series. You can send your answers by mail until this week-end. Classic British stamps are to win.

The questions can be copy on the Machin Mania blog.

Reflexions about ourselves

Gauthier Toulemonde's editorial in French Timbres magazine of June 2007, makes Claude Jamet run some reflexions and thoughts about philately and stamp collecting on his site Ma Philatélie. All of this is aimed at us, philatelists and/or collectors : have we to collect new stamps of our country's post, all of them, none, how, why ?

Two articles followed the analysis of Toulemonde "open letter to the [French] President" :
* « Timbres à collectionner ou timbre de collection » (stamps to collect or stamp of collection) is a question about some recent issue of prestige. Are they aimed at stamp collectors, the general public looking for special occasions, or what ?
* « En finir avec une collection systématique » (to end the systematic collection, i.e. collection of all the stamps your post is issuing), Claude Jamet write in order to transform the all-stamp-of-the-year collector into a philatelist, discovering stamp creation or postal history.

I have kept some marking sentences from this reading :
* « La collection systématique mène à tout, à condition d'en sortir. » (systematic collection ends everywhere, if you stop doing it (sorry for the rude translation)).
* Comparing stamps printed by machines and commemorative stamps : « La voiture n'a pas tué les balades du dimanche à vélo dans la campagne. Au contraire, elle les rend encore plus nécessaires. » (cars didn't kill sunday bike trips at the country. In the contrary, cars made them ever more necessary).

Through British Stamp Magazine reader's mail, my looking at the Australian and United States' stamp program, Claude Jamet's questions seem to be interesting farther than the Gallo-French philatelic pond.

Note :
Claude Jamet is a former philatelic journalist who wrote in Timbroscopie, a magazin that united with Le Monde des philatélistes and Timbroloisirs at the beginning of the 2000s to form Timbres magazine.

Third from Scattered islands

Arrived today, third Scattered islands first day cover.
From Juan de Nova island.
Named after Portuguese finder João da Nova.
Same illustrated stamps as Europa cover.
But some missing ink on them.
(lots of covers to be stamped ?)

Machin forever

Dominique on the Blog philatélie found a reference website on the Machin series, for those looking for exhaustivity and lots of advices to collect these stamps :
* Great Britain Machins by the 'Machin Nut', created by Canadian Robin Harris. For those who want to see what they can do with all their Machins easily find over the years, I advice you this page.

I admit my previous findings are more in my character of curious looking and finding by chance.

But, I have problems to find websites about Hong Kong Machins. Could anyone help me, please ?

Timbres magazine's franking machine

Here is the machine stamp I got on a letter from the bookshop of Timbres magazine.

The sticking paper wears a lot of yellow postal birds, logotype of La Poste since 1960.

On the other hand, I know little of the numbers (thanks to Yvon Nouazé for the help) :
* on this adhesive paper, a number (not easy to read) appears on the left bottom and up right explains the type of market passed between the firm and La Poste ;
* in the "perforated" stamp, the code : SE 25355. It is a Satas machine, and this code is a series number.

For the content of the letter (weighting between 500 grams and 1 kilo in priority mail = 3,77 €), I bought some books, cheaper thank to a promotion on prices (see their number of June). The announced books' defaults seems to be just a lack of freshness, certainly too much time passed in boxes. Nothing that makes this books unreadable.

Update of 24th June 2007 :
Thank to a mail from Yvon Nouazé, I update the significances of the codes. He gave me some bibliography in French : Laurent Bonnefoy et Luc Guillard, les Empreintes de machines à affranchir utilisées en France (volume 1, 484 pages) et les Empreintes de machines à affranchir utilisées en France depuis 1999 (volume 2, 284 pages), published by the Union marcophile association. (The marks of franking machine used in France)

Europa stamp in the TAAF

The second of the first day covers from the Scattered islands arrived from Europa during the week. The island's coordinates in the Mozambique Channel are presents like the first from Tromelin.


Little bonus : the illustrated stamp from the gendarme-postal agent for the island, in blue ink. And his quick signature (he must have signed a lot of these : the mail box in May was full at the end of the first afternoon of the three day first day of issue in Paris TAAF offices).

The Prague Castle

Hradčany, Prague Castle is the illustration of the first postage stamps of Czechoslovakia in October 1918, after the independance from the Austria-Hungary at the end of World War One. Thiese stamps were issued in December.



Whereas the graphism is relatively rude because of the lack of time and technical means, the illustration is made by one of the greatest artists of the 20th century Europe, Alfons Mucha, main representant of the Art nouveau. His most known works are his posters.

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