France Ptt Mutual Insurance Stamp, "A L'air Pur"

Can anyone help me with information about this (rather lovely!) stamp? I think PTT is the French postal service. "Ouevres Mutualistes"? Is this a charity stamp? I found one on ebay with no date or useful information, described as a "Poster Stamp".

Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong section.

I have to agree - It is lovely.
I've not seen it in any catalogue.

Stampgal
It's not a stamp for postal use. It's a cinderella for the payment of the mutual insurance of the Post, Telephone and Telegraph (P.T.T.) workers.

Thankyou Timbres! Its making more sense now! Do you have a date? Also, do you know the significance of l'air pur or the illustration?
I will ask to have the thread moved to Cinderellas.

I've seen at least one other color, too. Brown, I think? Maybe bister? I can't recall specifically.

Yes you're right Cjd, I have the brown one as well. They came from an album of mostly 1930s-50s stamps, so I am assuming they are of that era. I will have to do some more research!

Geewillikers!
that is one hell of a handsome stamp!
Thanks for showing us.

Anyone have any for sale here?

Yeah, anyone?

Geewillikers ! I have not heard that one since radio days !!

Rod - Geewhilikers is I think a rather appropriate exclamation - a stunner of a stamp. Well - I have admitted to having two of these, the green and brown. But I just can't bring myself to sell one - even to your good self. I will send you scans of them. A poor substitute, I know. Oh yes - slightly smaller scans than the last lot I sent you

PTT is the French Postal Service sort of. At one time up until 1991 the country's post office and telephone service was one national owned company. They split it up in 1991 into two separate companies. La Poste and French Telecom. From what I can remember about France from visiting there 25 years ago the PTT also got into the banking game and maybe insurance.

Just a wild guess..... possibly something dealing with the insurance part of the PTT. I will try to do some research on it.

Scans are fine Stampgal,
they should inherit a dedicated page in your album. :)
I wonder if inspired by Miss Amelia Earhart ?

A few more to add to the pile.

Here is the 5F value, not shown above:



And another, in a different design, this time 20F:



And then back to the aviatrix, but in a smaller format, with a few design changes, and an overprint for Algeria:



Makes one wonder how many other overprints might be out there. I Googled 'French aviatrix' and a few similar strings and found several old photos, but couldn't pin down the model for this stamp to any particular person.

Charles Mazelin, whose name appears in the bottom margin, designed a number of French stamps between 1941 and 1965 (from French Wikipedia). This strikes me as a postwar design.

I watched this the other evening...Documentary :Spitfire women.

They came from all over the world,
GB,US,Chile, NZ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goZ0k85-Fc8

PTT, victims of the war, 10F: