Four trials on the A5 left side of the cover. Even the last one, bottom right, shows a beginning of wear in the N of Meknes: its oblical bar is shorter and starts low.Thank you, postman, for your work.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Relations between a postman and his datestamp in Morocco
He wished to satisfy a French tourist who was sending a postcard inside an envelope for a friend's son (any reference to my situation is purely fortuitous :p). A Moroccan postman at Meknes-Medina office had some difficulties with the inkage of his datestamp.
Four trials on the A5 left side of the cover. Even the last one, bottom right, shows a beginning of wear in the N of Meknes: its oblical bar is shorter and starts low.
Thank you, postman, for your work.
Four trials on the A5 left side of the cover. Even the last one, bottom right, shows a beginning of wear in the N of Meknes: its oblical bar is shorter and starts low.Thank you, postman, for your work.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
First class definitives video of the United Kingdom
Found than to Machin Mania, this video by Chris Phillips was posted last year on YouTube. Subject: the evolution of the simple letter rate in the United Kingdom from 1840 to 2008.
The first part permits to retrieve the British first types, whose surnames are so exotic when a French philatelist find them in a magazine article.
The second part became a color study of the Machin series: 40 years of use during the Western industrial crisis of the late 20th century.
Only a note on my part: about the calculation. Yes, 2008 rate = 86.5 times 1840 rate... but this multiplicator is no information if you do not know if you need 86.5 times salary work to send a letter today compared to the mid 19th.
The first part permits to retrieve the British first types, whose surnames are so exotic when a French philatelist find them in a magazine article.
The second part became a color study of the Machin series: 40 years of use during the Western industrial crisis of the late 20th century.
Only a note on my part: about the calculation. Yes, 2008 rate = 86.5 times 1840 rate... but this multiplicator is no information if you do not know if you need 86.5 times salary work to send a letter today compared to the mid 19th.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Postal strike: how to detect it?
In France these days, it smells like postal strike despite not a word in the press.
New mail sorting facilities (said bigger, speeder, cost-killer) are opening. Employees transferred from old centers (said smaller, slower, expensive) are afraid. The Senate is discussing the future of La Poste (privatisation among other things).
Some have an October feeling of slowliness that confirms Postcrossing.
Today, six of my postcards to both Chinas, Australia and the United States have been travelling for a period of twenty to thirty-five... and are still looking for the goal. Normally, three days to allied Western countries to ten days top to Taiwan, certainly the time needed to go round Big China.
Facing such striky problems, Royal Mail found a solution to play the 'a-strike-sir-no-problem' face in front of clients: no date on the cancelling mark like Ian Billings discovered this week.
Selling companies communicated by mail to reassure costumers. Amazon.co.uk promises no problem to send and deliver goods during the newt November strike, or perhaps one/two days for some specific United Kingdom package.
What would be the solutions?
Did the Royal Mail guarantee service for its big senders? Easy to do for collection, sorting and sending from a mail center to another... but for the final step to your mailbox, outside high density populated area?
To use private operators? Either at the cost of the sender not to lose clients. Or at the cost (already in red) of the Royal Mail not to lose the big clients in a context of aggressive competition.
8 November 2009 : today's Sunday Times reports the effervescent activities of small private operators.
New mail sorting facilities (said bigger, speeder, cost-killer) are opening. Employees transferred from old centers (said smaller, slower, expensive) are afraid. The Senate is discussing the future of La Poste (privatisation among other things).
Some have an October feeling of slowliness that confirms Postcrossing.
Today, six of my postcards to both Chinas, Australia and the United States have been travelling for a period of twenty to thirty-five... and are still looking for the goal. Normally, three days to allied Western countries to ten days top to Taiwan, certainly the time needed to go round Big China.
Facing such striky problems, Royal Mail found a solution to play the 'a-strike-sir-no-problem' face in front of clients: no date on the cancelling mark like Ian Billings discovered this week.
Selling companies communicated by mail to reassure costumers. Amazon.co.uk promises no problem to send and deliver goods during the newt November strike, or perhaps one/two days for some specific United Kingdom package.
What would be the solutions?
Did the Royal Mail guarantee service for its big senders? Easy to do for collection, sorting and sending from a mail center to another... but for the final step to your mailbox, outside high density populated area?
To use private operators? Either at the cost of the sender not to lose clients. Or at the cost (already in red) of the Royal Mail not to lose the big clients in a context of aggressive competition.
8 November 2009 : today's Sunday Times reports the effervescent activities of small private operators.
A new pictorial cancel from New Caledonia
I do not regret my Summer stamp order to New Caledonia Post and Telecommunications Office. With the last issue notices came my second type of pictorial cancellation from Nouméa.
A little error on the date block: it reads 28 January 2009 instead of 28 October 2009.
The Cocotiers Square appears again with the koisk and the Céleste Fountain. Saint Joseph's Cathedral stands above the town center.
Google Maps helps to locate all this. But it shows that, from the square, you can not see the front of the cathedral's towers. A good pictorial (when well-inked) though.
A little error on the date block: it reads 28 January 2009 instead of 28 October 2009.The Cocotiers Square appears again with the koisk and the Céleste Fountain. Saint Joseph's Cathedral stands above the town center.
Google Maps helps to locate all this. But it shows that, from the square, you can not see the front of the cathedral's towers. A good pictorial (when well-inked) though.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Apologies from a water polo afficionado
Philately will come back here soon.
I was occupied at the LEN Trophy's first round which took place in Montpellier ; it is the secondary European water polo cup. The home club won the fourth and last qualifying place for the next stage.
No, I was not in the water. If I had tried that, I would finally have touched the three meter bottom of the Venus olympic-size pool in Antigone... for a long time.
Supporter emotions to ease down, pictures to archive and sleep before stamps again. Sleep because in the middle of all this, I forgot the damned Winter time change and to be up at five sharp is quiet early, even to watch water polo.
To help you wait, you can read this topical humorous note I forgot to translate from my blog in French:
Believing the French stamp catalog website Phil-Ouest search engine, there is no postage stamp of France about water polo despite a gold medal at the 1924 Olympic Games.
And because the team did not qualify, not even the hope of a stamped medal of the exquisite Helsinki's Games series designed by André Jacquemin. The genesis of this late issuedseries was recently told in Timbres magazine in September 2008.
Here you are when you win before the postal printing plant has not yet been launched at full ramming speed to a wall.
Let's picture it again with the shooter on the left, I am sure that you can do a five to ten stamp minisheet with this picture: shooter, arm up defensor, retropedaling goalkeeper, standing coach, worrying president, substitute, the offensive countdown clock, the advert baloons, spectators, referee in white, federal delegate, ball, etc. And with my pool-o-phobic camera, not a change that someone recognizes a living person.
(licence : Creative Commons by-nc-nd, taken during the fifth place match, Cup of France).
...
Wwwwwwwww-hat!!!
They dit it alREADY!!!
I was occupied at the LEN Trophy's first round which took place in Montpellier ; it is the secondary European water polo cup. The home club won the fourth and last qualifying place for the next stage.
No, I was not in the water. If I had tried that, I would finally have touched the three meter bottom of the Venus olympic-size pool in Antigone... for a long time.
Supporter emotions to ease down, pictures to archive and sleep before stamps again. Sleep because in the middle of all this, I forgot the damned Winter time change and to be up at five sharp is quiet early, even to watch water polo.
To help you wait, you can read this topical humorous note I forgot to translate from my blog in French:
Believing the French stamp catalog website Phil-Ouest search engine, there is no postage stamp of France about water polo despite a gold medal at the 1924 Olympic Games.
And because the team did not qualify, not even the hope of a stamped medal of the exquisite Helsinki's Games series designed by André Jacquemin. The genesis of this late issuedseries was recently told in Timbres magazine in September 2008.
Here you are when you win before the postal printing plant has not yet been launched at full ramming speed to a wall.
Let's picture it again with the shooter on the left, I am sure that you can do a five to ten stamp minisheet with this picture: shooter, arm up defensor, retropedaling goalkeeper, standing coach, worrying president, substitute, the offensive countdown clock, the advert baloons, spectators, referee in white, federal delegate, ball, etc. And with my pool-o-phobic camera, not a change that someone recognizes a living person.(licence : Creative Commons by-nc-nd, taken during the fifth place match, Cup of France).
...
Wwwwwwwww-hat!!!
They dit it alREADY!!!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Finnish Braille, a definitive commodity
Already presented here, a good habit of Posti: to issue each year a stamp of Finland which denomination is printed in Braille to help blind people.
Here is the 22 January 2009 one with a morning landscape of Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park, in Northern Finland.
Always more useful than a commemorative issue in Braille once every decade.
Here is the 22 January 2009 one with a morning landscape of Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park, in Northern Finland.Always more useful than a commemorative issue in Braille once every decade.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Why Guernsey pictorial cancellations are rare
Guernsey Post is forty years old[1] (thirty-nine when I received this Postcrossing card), but it can commit errors:
There are pictorial cancellations in Guernsey, but very difficult to discern. Empty inker? Air mail label too thick?
[1] : read October 2009 Gibbons Stamp Monthly's four articles on Guernsey postal, marcophilic and philatelic history.
There are pictorial cancellations in Guernsey, but very difficult to discern. Empty inker? Air mail label too thick?[1] : read October 2009 Gibbons Stamp Monthly's four articles on Guernsey postal, marcophilic and philatelic history.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
France like you smell it
In the Summer 2008 issue of Timbres magazine, Socrate, nickmame of a free spirited philatelist, proposed to import in France the Japan's regional issue. One or two stamps per year and per regions, on a purely regional topic, regionally chosen with work from regional artists.
Alas! The French philatelic service, Φl@poste, heard its socratism and three serious and tragic events happened. First, a φl@telic diarrhea of two hundreds and sixty-four photographed copy-paste on adhesive paper. Then, the twenty-three cent cost per already-personalised stamps. Finally, believing some testimonies on a frp forum, the reprint of some of these souvenirs because they were popular enough...
Puig, excellent cheesemaker in Montpellier,
23 Saint-Guilhem Street, in the historical towncenter.
And, in need of bread, you can go to Lo Monaco,
8 Jean-Jacques-Rousseau Street.
Alas! The French philatelic service, Φl@poste, heard its socratism and three serious and tragic events happened. First, a φl@telic diarrhea of two hundreds and sixty-four photographed copy-paste on adhesive paper. Then, the twenty-three cent cost per already-personalised stamps. Finally, believing some testimonies on a frp forum, the reprint of some of these souvenirs because they were popular enough...
Puig, excellent cheesemaker in Montpellier,23 Saint-Guilhem Street, in the historical towncenter.
And, in need of bread, you can go to Lo Monaco,
8 Jean-Jacques-Rousseau Street.
To relay Socrate in the idea department and Φl@poste in the search of pigeons, I propose a series entitled France like you smell it: one stamp per cheese of our regions. According to known men's quotations, there would two to three hundreds stamps, enough for a new diarrhea like in Spring 2009.
And if Φl@boulazac, my new way of calling Φl@poste's printing plant, would want to use again the chocalate-smelling micro-bubble technology improved with the ageing of the odor, the issue title would become a commercial promise.
And if Φl@boulazac, my new way of calling Φl@poste's printing plant, would want to use again the chocalate-smelling micro-bubble technology improved with the ageing of the odor, the issue title would become a commercial promise.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
France 2011 program (first part only... oh my)
The first part of France's philatelic program for 2011 was published on 29 September 2009 by the Ministry of Industry.
My problem is not about the topics ; let see what the artist will do with them.
It is: it is only the first part, when many postal operators would be happy with that: twenty-one issues plus ten message stamps, nicknamed writing stamps at one moment, semi-permanent stamps on the other.
I see that the Minister of the Industry did not use the big-hearted names described into the magnificent Charter of the Φlatélie... Has none of the signatories sent him one copy?
Or, if his services did receive it, it seems they decided to do it simple and efficient: like before.
My problem is not about the topics ; let see what the artist will do with them.
It is: it is only the first part, when many postal operators would be happy with that: twenty-one issues plus ten message stamps, nicknamed writing stamps at one moment, semi-permanent stamps on the other.
I see that the Minister of the Industry did not use the big-hearted names described into the magnificent Charter of the Φlatélie... Has none of the signatories sent him one copy?
Or, if his services did receive it, it seems they decided to do it simple and efficient: like before.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Back to optimism and futility: be philatelist
And hop, to be light again and let's sail to Bermuda... (stereotyped music of the Pacific isles) Isles with an encharming name in the Northern Atlantic when Autumn is planting tent in the Southern of France... And one of the British overseas tax havens.
In March 2009, the Bermuda Monetary Authority introduced new banknotes for the four hundreds years of the long last installation of Britishmen and slaves on the site. Yes, a sort of definitive note series with a commemorative first day of issue.
How to use these notes has got many likenesses with all the overwhelming issuance policy of many philatelic services and agencies in the world. To make it simple, one dollar of Bermuda plus cost is worth around one dollar of the United States of America, near-by provider of green notes which usuaully migrate with businessmen, their lawyers, their bankers or people on vacation. The United States dollar is accepted everywhere, but the problem begins if the change is given to you in the local currency. The latter can be used or changed only in the archipelago. Either you spend them or you make a changing office happy.
Why am I, right now, interesting in these far away notes?
No, not because of the frog (one of the human-brought-them species). You are confusing with Eric's blog.
Look weel... yes, there!
Below the ocean, the islands-profile hologram, the frog!!
Left bottom!!!
YESSSSSSSSSS: the magnificent effigy of Her Majesty by Arnold Machin.
The new set of banknote is more modern in design and the queen's portrait was disminished to the cameo size it has on the commemorative stamps of the United Kingdom. And the Machin effigy can do that very well without hurting the Monarchy.
On the other side, a little more of fauna and flora, and an historical architectural element of the territory.
Thanks to the Banknote News blog that illustrated with specimen images when the official issuer shows nothing.
In March 2009, the Bermuda Monetary Authority introduced new banknotes for the four hundreds years of the long last installation of Britishmen and slaves on the site. Yes, a sort of definitive note series with a commemorative first day of issue.
How to use these notes has got many likenesses with all the overwhelming issuance policy of many philatelic services and agencies in the world. To make it simple, one dollar of Bermuda plus cost is worth around one dollar of the United States of America, near-by provider of green notes which usuaully migrate with businessmen, their lawyers, their bankers or people on vacation. The United States dollar is accepted everywhere, but the problem begins if the change is given to you in the local currency. The latter can be used or changed only in the archipelago. Either you spend them or you make a changing office happy.
Why am I, right now, interesting in these far away notes?
No, not because of the frog (one of the human-brought-them species). You are confusing with Eric's blog.
Look weel... yes, there!
Below the ocean, the islands-profile hologram, the frog!!
Left bottom!!!
YESSSSSSSSSS: the magnificent effigy of Her Majesty by Arnold Machin.
The new set of banknote is more modern in design and the queen's portrait was disminished to the cameo size it has on the commemorative stamps of the United Kingdom. And the Machin effigy can do that very well without hurting the Monarchy.
On the other side, a little more of fauna and flora, and an historical architectural element of the territory.
Thanks to the Banknote News blog that illustrated with specimen images when the official issuer shows nothing.
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