What Was In Your Mailbox Today??

I was in Palma de Mallorca for a week and when I returned I had 22 letters, 19 of them with stamps.

"with stamps"...on the outside? Or on the inside?

Three commercial covers and 19 exchanges/purchases/gifts philatelic.

A not too banged up copy of the 2000 Michel Deutschland Spezial Katalog. I recently picked up a 2020 edition of Band 2 but also wanted to get one of the older single volume versions.

Dale

This arrived a while back but it made it out of the envelope today for the mugshot and fingerprinting.



Cook Islands 1919 1sh block of 4. The basic stamp is Scott 60.

I'll have to check the perfs later tonight.

The design of this early airmail French stamp just intrigued me.

It took about 6 months to get it certified by APS and finally arrived recently. Certificate says, "France Scott C15, unused, previously hinged. Original gum. Genuine."

You have to squint to see there was a hinge, but the certificate makes no mention of the collector mark on the back. I'd really be curious to know who the collector was, if there is a database of collector marks, as knowing the stamp's history would be great.

It's in the position where a French expert would ordinarily leave a handstamp signifying unmounted mint, which this obviously isn't, unless it's changed over time.

Why did you bother with a cert for this one? Has the banknote been widely faked?

Just my general personal policy to do so when I purchase more expensive stamps, not just as to being fake but as to it matches the description in the APS stamp store. It was initially identified as hinged when I bought it, so no conflict there, just curious as to the mark.

It's a wacky stamp. And why were this and the 50 Fr light green air-mail stamp issued within three weeks of one another? There was also a projected 100 Fr version, which didn't make it beyond the essay stage.

Probably why I was so intrigued by the stamp. I am relatively new to French stamps and was attracted by the designs, but using Scott catalogue is a hindrance. Your comment on the 50 Fr stamp I had not noticed. The Scott catalogue is slim and inconsistent on issue dates. Probably should get the Stanley Gibbons catalogue but it only goes to 2015 and I there is no digital version, which I prefer. But I whine......

Gibbons usually gives issue dates. Yvert doesn't - or not precise ones - but is available digitally

https://www.yvert.com/A-214951-abon...-monaco.aspx

Spink/Maury is the best for detail, but, again, not available digitally.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spink-Cata...%2C83&sr=8-3

It is the mark of Jean-Francois Brun, Paris, b. 1943, expert 1970–, BPP 1984, AIEP 1970–, [FFE2, 3 (p. 167) 6, 7, PE].




https://www.filatelia.fi/experts/areasf.html

Hi GeoffHa - Thanks for the catalogue recommendations. For me SG may work best as in English. I really love the SG catalogues I have now, digitally or in print. Very good quality compared to Scott.

Hi Rogdcam - Thanks for the lookup on Jean-Francois Brun. This helps resolve my curiosity.

Ken

Scott Classic has the issue date for your stamp as July 10, 1936. Is that not in the basic Scott?

By the way, you might want to break that C15 France out into a separate message in the classic forum and see if anyone else thinks you might have C15a, reversed burelage. In Scott speak, "red network inverted."