France: The Calender of the Jacobins

I have a collection entitled ” Chatou my village west of Paris”. Three old letters from the time of the French Revolution form part of my collection. I show them below. In many ways they are something special. First, however, I want to provide you with some background information which will make it easier to understand the (inside) dates of the letters.

At the French revolutionary convention in October 1793 a new revolutionary calendar was approved. The calendar was implemented on September 22, 1793. It was decided to start counting from this same day, but from the previous year, 1792; the day of the decision to abolish the monarchy and the creation of the republic.

The year was divided into 12 months of 30 days, which leaves us with a surplus of 5 days (6 days in leap years), which were placed at the end of the year. The surplus days were called ”sans-culottides” and would be national holidays. Every month consists of three weeks,”décades”. The last day in a week would be a day for resting. The months were grouped in 4 sets of three according to the seasons – autumn, winter, spring and summer. They are given natural names. The weekdays were called first day, second day, third day aso. till the tenth day. The Calender never became popular with the people and was abolished by Napoleon in year 12 (1804).

Letter No. 1: As can be seen from all three letters one addressed each other ”citoyen” i.e. citizen in the name of equality.This is a postage due letter sent from Chatou to Pôntoise dated 14. Nivôse (snow) Year 5, i.e. 3rd of January 1797. The postage, 4 “décimes”, was paid to the letter carrier. The embossed postmark shows the towns name and the number 72, the ”department Seine et Oise”.

Letter no. 2: This is a postage due letter sent from Chatou to Pôntoise dated 5. Ventôse (wind) year 6, i.e. 23rd February 1798. The postage, 5 “décimes”, was paid to the letter carrier. The red postmark shows the towns name and the number 72, the ”department Seine et Oise”. The colour of the postmark does not signify any special function, but the red one is rare.

Letter No. 3: Finally a postage due letter sent from Chatou to Pôntoise dated 15. Ventôse (wind) year 7, i.e. 5th March 1799. The postage, 4 “décimes”, was paid to the letter carrier. The red postmark shows the towns name and number 72, the ”department Seine et Oise”.

When you collect a French area as I do there is no way round the updating of a chapter of the history of France. But this certainly just adds to the adventure.

The village of Chatou has its own homepage telling for instance the history of the place. The story of the Calendar of the Jacobins is told on many a fine site.

Danish bicolored. What is an isolated frame?

Recently I was asked “What is an isolated frame”. I promise not to turn this blog into a blog about bicolored stamps only, but this particular question I deem to be of a general interest and I therefore will gladly try to give an answer.

Many but not all the printings of the bicolored stamps of Denmark were printed in sheets of 100, two at a time. You may call them an A-sheet and a B-sheet. Depending which printing we are talking about all stamps in a sheet can have either the normal frame or the inverted frame as shown in my post below.

In certain printings one or a few clichés were turned 180 degrees. For what reason this happened is still being debated among the specialists. Anyhow, the result is that in certain printings you find 99 stamps with the normal frame and one stamp with the inverted frame. Or the opposite; in certain sheets you find 99 stamps with inverted frames and 1 stamp with a normal frame. This one inverted or the one normal frame is named ”an isolated frame”.

Most of the stamps with isolated frames have small errors and can therefore be separated from other stamps. It follows that stamps with a normal frame as well as stamps with an inverted frame can be common or can be rare depending whether they are isolated frames or belong to the great majority of stamps with the same frame in the sheet of a printing.

The five øre isolated frame shown is one of the rarest isolated frame. It belongs to Henrik Mouritsen.

A follow-up question:

In some sheets there are more than one that are different from the majority of stamps in the sheet. Are they also called “isolated frames”? And can normal frame also be isolated frames?

This question has more to do with language than with the way the stamps were produced.

The concept of “an isolated frame” encompasses the situation when there is more than one or several frames in a sheet that are different from the majority of frames. I cannot tell where the balance tilts - “the fifty-fifty situation” - but never mind. Such a setting does not exist.

Take for instance the socalled ”mixed series” which includes printing 12 of the 4 øre denomination. In the one of the two sheets that were printed at the same time all frame are normal but for 22 stamps which have the inverted frame. There inverted frames are called isolated frames. In the other sheet all 100 frames are normal but one which is inverted and is of course also named an isolated frame.

If we take a look at 12 øre 3rd print it consists of 53 normal frames and 47 inverted frames which by the way are all thick frames. The term “isolated” is not used about the 47 inverted stamps. It seems that we have reached the limits of the concept “isolated”.

I think that an element of the concept of ”isolated” is that the frame in question is rare and the more of a kind that exist in a certain print the less the rarity.

The 22 inverted frames in the 4 øre print 12 (A-plate) are considered interesting because they are almost all identifiable. In addition most of them are spread out in the sheet as if all the clichés had been dropped and put together maybe a little too quickly. Finally the colors of the stamp are very similar to the colors of other printings and therefore can be hard to identify already for that reason. In that respect the inverted frames come helpful, exactly because they are inverted which help you distinguish them from stamps from other similar looking prints.

Two normal frames from the 12th printing the right stamp being position 100, the position of the left stamp still illusive.

And yes! Normal frames can also be isolated frames. A very good example we find in the printings 52-53 and 54-55 of the 8 øre denomination. In the prints 52-53 you have one isolated inverted frame in the A-sheet on position 70; in the prints 54-55 you have one isolated normal frame in the A-sheet on position 31. The whole plate with all its individual clichés have been turned 180 degrees.

Position 31 - 33 printing 54
(sold at Thomas Høiland Auction june 2007)

Actually it is not that difficult to understand the system of the bicolored, if only you get a good explanation and get the chance to see the stamps with your own eyes. But many things in life are in fact like that.

Am I right?

A wrapper from the Kingdom of Samoa

So tempting to start a new collection of Samoa. At times Samoa was independent, at times under English, German, New Zealand and United States control. Since 1962 Samoa is again an independent nation. For philatelists and postal historians there is plenty to go for.

Collecting a cross-boundary item as I do – "Newspaper Wrappers Worldwide from Before 1900" – I sometimes touch on areas so fascinating that I get tempted to start up a new collection.

Looking for wrappers on the Internet in December 2006 I came across an unusual one at Ebay. The starting price was low. Having acquired some extra information from the seller I made what I thought was a fair bid 77 US $. You can imagine my surprise when I saw the price going steep upwards and ending at 1.981 US $. I am sure the seller was delighted and just as surprised as I was.

What is so special about this wrapper? According to the postmark dated August 16 (no year), it was sent from Apia on the Island of Upolo, which is part of the group of 14 islands that lies about 1600 miles north-east of New Zealand and bears the name of Samoa. The addressee is a Mr. Kusenach, in Lehe, which is a small town near Bremerhafen at the North West coast of Germany. The wrapper is directed to be sent via San Francisco in the United States.

The postage is made up of a 1 penny stamp from The Kingdom of Samoa (probably SG 35 issued in Mai 1890) plus a 1 cent stamp from the United States (Y&T 1931 no. 70 issued 1890 – 1893). This combination is unusual.

The reason behind this special rate is that the United States had joined the UPU in 1875. Samoa was however still not a party to the UPU cooperation, and therefore the question of the validity of Samoan stamps for oversees postage was raised. Mail from Samoa for e.g. Australia and New Zealand was accepted without surcharge by their postal authorities, but for delivery in the United States and onwards additional postage was needed. For a letter 5cent; for a printed matter 1 cent (at least according to our wrapper).

References:

World History Stamp Atlas by Rossiter and Flower 1986/1991

Stanley Gibbons, British Commonwealth 2000 Edition

Yvert et Tellier Catalogue de Timbres Postes 1931

A Jewel of Danish Philately: 48 sk. block of 4

At a recent auction held by Enger in Norway one of the jewels of Danish Philately was sold for a considerable sum: A block of four of 48 skilling bi-colored issued in 1870.

The block is special in two ways. All four stamps have the so-called "thick frame". All 48 sk. have that frame so the 48 sk. does not exist with the thinner frame that is the frame common to most bi-colored editions. As always there are exceptions and I shall revert to them in a later post.

The other reason why the block is special is because the stamp in the South East corner has the inverted frame. Yes you are right. A thick inverted frame. In one sheet of 100 of 48 sk. stamps only two stamps have the inverted frame. The two stamps with the inverted frame are called isolated inverted thick frames, which is natural since the other 98 stamps in the sheet have the normal thinner frame.

How does one recognize a thick frame? Yes! it is a bit larger than the normal frame. In fact if you measure the corner feather North East we are talking about 0.2 mm. A normal feather measures 2.6 mm. A thick feather 2.8 mm. But it is not just the feathers that are bigger. The whole frame is a little bit bigger.

If you face a real thick frame you cannot miss it, however – and there is always an however – the clichés of the normal frame do become worn and sometimes a stamp from a printing having been printed wholly or partly with worn cliché’s do look as if they have thick frames. They do not. I show you one of each. First a genuine thick normal frame followed by a stamp printed with a worn cliché of a normal thinner frame.

Enjoy the 4 block because you will probably not be able to see it live. The purple color very easily fades when exposed to natural bright light and therefore the block is not likely to be shown at public exhibitions and fairs.

Danish Bicoloured: The Elusive Frames

The Danish bi-colored stamps (1875 - 1905) are wonderful stamps. Pretty and full of unsolved mysteries. You can spend hours learning about how they were designed, produced and finally delivered by the printers to the Postal Authorities. If you have studied enough, which presupposes having enough material; If you have acces to the right literature and have acquired some experience in identifying the secreets, you may be able to determine a stamp by its printing and maybe even by its original position in the sheet.

The Danish bi-colored stamps are not rare stamps. Most of them were produced in millions. Some of the denominations you can even still buy by the hundreds for 15 - 20 $. Others will cost you more.

Their design consists of a frame and an oval. In order to determine their type according to the catalogues you need to understand at least the difference between a normal and an inverted frame. You will see the difference clearly from the old drawing shown above.

I will not dwell on the details of the differences between the two types in this posting. The point I want to make is, that you can only very rarely determine their number in the catalog and thereby their value by their type of frame alone. You need to combine the information of the type with more information to do that. Therefore never accept information given at auction or by a seller about the type of a stamp as the only and final proof of the identity of a stamp if the auctioneer or the seller claims that the stamp is rare and valuable because of its type of frame alone.

Some stamps with a normal frame can in facty be very rare; some stamps with an inverted frame can also in fact be very rare. It all depends, which denomination and which printing they belong to. And in order to determine that, you need a whole lot more information about this series and experience in dealing with this information as I have already stated above.Therefore if tempted by an offer of a bi-cored stamp with a rare frame always demand a certificate by an expert known to posses the necessary knowledge about the subject.

Here follows two samples. One stamp with an inverted frame and one stamp with a normal frame. Soon I'll come back to complicate matters telling about thick frames, which can also be devided into the to types mentioned.

How to deal with faulty stamps! Point of view

Hand in old faulty stamps to your club or society, put them up on stiff sheets with a plastic cover and lend them to members who want to learn about early editions.

Surprisingly often I see faulty old Danish stamps, especially from the “skilling" denomination period of 1851 – 1875, offered for sale at horrendous prices. I wonder what happens to these stamps in the end, since they are rarely sold for the price that the seller asks? I have however noticed that some of these faulty stamps reemerge in collections put up for sale. Suppose the seller is thinking, if I bury them among other stamps, which are in a better shape, buyers will not notice or not mind? May even increase the total price of the lot?

What do I mean when I say faulty? I mean missing perforation, cut into or cut off all perforation, smaller or bigger creases, corners missing, thins aso. They really look and are clearly faulty bad quality stamps. What do I mean when I say horrendous prices? I mean the full or close to full catalog price. Their real value if any is a small fraction only of the catalog price.

My advice to sellers of old faulty Danish stamps is the following. Describe them for what they are, faulty. Put them up for sale at auction at the lowest possible selling price. Put them up in lots of 10 or 20 and I am sure the sellers will see that these stamps have after all a value as study material. Many a collector’s question about type, colour, variety, print aso could be answered by the collector him- or herself, if only they were owners of a sample.

Another idea would be for the stamp collectors clubs or societies to encourage their members to hand in these faulty stamps, put them up on stiff sheets with a plastic cover and lend them to members who want to learn about early editions.

No need to say, that the above pieces of advice is valid for all countries as far as old or classic stamps are concerned. It is only because I am Danish and a collector of Danish stamps that I make my comments on the background of my knowledge of classic Danish stamps.

A Danish letter card for North Schleswig, probably unique. Why?

I want to show you the front and back of a letter-card sent from Kolding, a town close to the Danish border with Germany, as defined as a result of the war with Prussia in 1864 (changed again in 1920), to my town of birth, Haderslev, a few kilometers south of the same border.

The card looks a bit worn, but never mind. I consider it very rare if not unique, and if this holds true, a stain here or there and a bit of rust do not matter. Very probably it is the only card of this kind in existence.

Since the card does in itself not provide too much information I have had to dig it out from various sources, and only thanks to good friends in the philatelic world, I succeeded.

Its destination, Haderslev, is clear from the front. Equally so is the fact that it was transported by railway all the way to Haderslev. I know this is so from the postmark which says "FYEN.JB.P.B. 27.3. 3. TOG". This particular postmark was, according to "The Railway Post Offices of Denmark 1847-1972" from 1979 written by Anthony M. Goodbody, used by the railway post bureau created in 1865 in the island of Funen. The bureau covered the line between Nyborg and Middelfart.

In 1866 this line, however, was extended to Vamdrup in Jutland, which is important for the postal history behind our letter-card. Vamdrup, between 1864 and 1920 the very busy railway borderstation between Denmark and Germany, lies a few kilometers south of Kolding on the railway that would take the card to Haderslev. By the way, it was not until 1872 that the actual train wagons themselves were transferred from Funen to Jutland across the Sound of Lillebaelt since ferries made for the carrying of train wagons simply were not in use in Denmark prior to that year.

The reason why the route is important is the fact that the card bears no mention of the town of departure. However the knowledge we have on the name of the sender in combination with the message carried by the letter-card and the special rate used reveals that the town of departure is most certainly Kolding.

The senders name is Roose and the message concerns the deliveries of carriages with bran, a byproduct of grain processing. Roose was an important dealer in grain and feeding stuff in Kolding during the period 1870 – 1880.

The stamp used (2nd print of 4 øre bicolored) in combination with the 2 sk. stationery letter-card narrows the year of the sending of the card to 1875 more precisely 27th March 1875 according to the postmark. January 1st Denmark due to a monetary reform changed from Rigsdaler/Skilling to Kroner/Øre. 2 sk was converted to 4 øre. It follows that altogether the postage used was 8 øre.

But the rate at the time for letter cards to Germany was 10 øre? No postage due markings are found on the card. 8 øre, however, corresponds with the special border rate for Schleswig. This rate though was only valid for letters not for letter-cards except for the fact that until 30th June 1875, the day before Denmark joins the uniform rates of the UPU, lettercards were de facto treated like letters and among the very few Post Offices covered by the special border rate at the time were Kolding and Haderslev.

To sum up: This lettercard is characterized by 1) its mixed postage of sk. and øre, 2) its special border rate and 3) the fact that letter-cards were accepted de facto for this rate only between January, 1st and July, 1st 1875. Together these three characteristics make the letter-card rare, if not unique.

I want to thank Lars Engelbrecht and Jørgen Kluge, the latter being the author of an e-book on Danish Border Mail, for their invaluable help in confirming my belief that the letter-card was and is a border-letter.

French Balloon Post for Denmark - A Rarity

At the Internet pages of the French auction house Lugdunum Philatélie I noticed the above fantastic letter. The letter was posted in Paris on October 7th, 1870 its destination being Denmark: Mrs. R. Valentin, Amagertorv 27, København. It was posted by the son of the addressee. I presume that at the time he was attached to the family business in Paris, Valintin & Frankfurter, 4 Passage Violet, Paris. Anyhow, that is how the return address, which can be seen on the front of the letter, reads. The letter is franked with two Napoleon III stamps (with a laurel wreath), the 20c blue and the 30c brown, in all 50c which sufficed as postage for Denmark according to the red box mark PD on the front, " Payé à Destination".

What makes this letter very special is, however, that it left Paris in a pile of letters placed in a balloon. This fact emerges clearly from the letter front: "par Ballon libre". I am not a collector of French postal history and therefore it is with a certain reservation that I reproduce the following information (in other words do consult my source of information): As I understand it there were two kinds of balloons, manned balloons and un-manned balloons. Whether a letter was sent by the one or the other, can in certain cases be determined by the front of the pre-printed correspondence cards, which were very quickly put on the marked by private firms. If it said "par Ballon libre" the balloon was un-manned, if it said "par Ballon monté" it was a manned balloon. Out of the in all 67 balloons 55 were manned. The postage, the weight and size permitted, varied according to the type of balloon employed. That the manned type was soon preferred to the un-manned is self-evident.

Our letter was sent by an un-manned balloon on October 7th, 1870. In all three balloons were despatched that very day, out of which at least one was manned namely the balloon with the name of the famous George Sand. Another was called Armand Barbe and the third either had no name or was called Piper No 1. They landed in the non occupied areas of France and the letters were handed in by the finder at a near by Post Office for further attention. Of course the finder received a neat compensation for the trouble caused and a reward.


The contents of the letter sound the following:

My dear Mother
I confirm my letters from last week. We are still under siege, but have the best of hopes; the Prussians die outside Paris! I am in good health and I hope the same is the case for you, my dear Mother, and that all the family is in good health. My very best wishes to all of you, your affectionate son
J Valentin.

If we did not already know here is the explanation why the mail leaving Paris was shipped by balloons. The French-Prussian war rages and Paris is under siege. The war was declared by France on July 19th, 1870 and ended by the signing of an armistice agreement on January 28th, 1871.

To those collectors who look for more information about this period or about the postal history of France dating 1848 – 1878 I would recommend to turn to a beautifully illustrated book published this year by Michéle Chauvet and Jean-Francois Brun.

Mr. Brun informs that an estimated two to three million letters were shipped out of Paris by balloon during the siege most of them to destinations in France itself. How many balloon mail letters exist with Denmark as their final destination I do not know? I have been told about the existence of one other letter so maybe there are indeed two of them.

FDC's. Their role in a stamp collection need to well defined. Point of view.

Do you consider FDC’s relevant to a classical stamp collector? No! Unless it is a letter carrying Penny Black sent on the date of issue or a similar item from before the concept of FDC's were invented. Could even very well be of a later date if genuinely a letter reflecting the proper postal rate.

But why are FDC's not terribly popular among advanced traditional collectors? Because their postal purpose is questionable. They are wannabe letters, but never become letters. A letter is basically a message to somebody who is absent. If the receiver replies you even have a correspondence. FDC's do not carry messages, they just mark an event. The stamp on an FDC furthermore often does not reflect a rate for services rendered.

These facts do not mean that FDC's cannot form part of a stamp collection. I am sure thematic collectors wellcome them. I myself include FDC's in my open class collection. They represent my theme and add to the variety of objects. Whether they fall in the category of stamp related material (50%) or non-stamp related material (50%) I do not know. The judges will surely tell me if the balance in my collection is out of order.

FDC's should be accepted for what they are. A collector's item marking an event. Problem is that suffisticated dealers sometimes make unexperienced traditional collectors believe that FDC's belong in a traditional collection and even may gain in value like traditional stamps and covers sometimes do. FDC's, however, very rarely do gain in value to the great disappointment of many a young collector!