Early France - French Or Colonies?

I've been scared to work on my early French stamps so I don't accidentally mix the Colonies in. I know I don't have anything really nice anyway but I do want to get them placed correctly.

Is there anything here that sticks out as obvious Colonies?

thanks

Mike

The Colonies issues in the Napoleon and Ceres designs are all imperforate, which rules out your Ceres. The Napoleon Empire issue appeared as the 1c green-olive, the 5c yellow-green, the 30c brown and the 80c rose. Your 80c rose must, I think, be the France issue, as it doesn't have the solid cross in the corners. The 5c yellow-green is a possibility, as the Colonies (1871) and France (1853) issues were more or less identical, but it would need a specialist to distinguish it.

No Big Brother to tell you off for getting them wrong!

Geoff

Thanks Geoff - appreciate it

I cannot see any colonial issues amongst them,

Pagoda

Mike

If it helps, I can scan the Yvert early Colonies pages for you. The early France pages are too numerous!

Geoff

That's OK Geoff but thanks. I'll just keep them with France

That 5c has a red newspaper cancel so unlikely a colony usage.

This is one challenging area of philately. Any references (online or otherwise) to help differentiate early France stamps from early French Colonies ones?

mike33 - Beautiful stamps! I'm no expert but have used quite some time studying these issues. I agree with pagoda and AnthonyUK, seems there are no colonial issues. But there are some nice ambulant postmarks if you are interested in that stuff.

medoc - For the few stamps that can easily be confused from France or the colonies, the best way to positively identify is by the postmarks/ cancellations. Most of the stamps above can easily be identified as French stamps by their French cancellations 'GC' - or 'Large numerals postmark. This website is excellent reference for all French postmarks, including 'GC' or 'PC':
http://marcophilie.org/b0.html

The 'losange muet' was first used in the colonies, and can easily be seperated from French postmarks, see this link:
http://marcophilie.org/x/x-%7Dlosange-i.html
Later dedicated losange with letters were used in some colonies, see this link: http://marcophilie.org/oblcol-losan...etiques.html

Some of the postmarks above have losange with letters, but as far as I can see they are all French postmarks used for ambulant postoffices. Which is absolutely interesting in themselves, but their not from the colonies.

Besides the postmarks, the 'identical' French and Colonial stamps can be seperated by the French being printed with better impresiions by 'new' plates, and the colonies have been printed with more worn plates. All the colonies napoleon and ceres were imperf - but the colors on the imperfs from the colonies are supposed to be identical with the perforated French counterpart, and slightly different colors from the imperf French stamps.

Thanks for everyone's help. I got home from work tonight with the goal of mounting the imperfs in my album and ran into another block. First was Die I or II for 10 and 20c. I've got them all identified as Die I so that was easy. Now it's all the different colors and the more I look at them, the more I can't decide.

I know it's tough with a scan/monitor but any clue which colors I have? They list different color papers but they all look the same to me. here's bigger scan:



Another question - I took the 5c green from the top row of first pic and it's feels really thick, like it's possibly cut from a post card. I suppose the envelope could still be under it as it's cut so close. I guess I could give it another soak and see if it separates but if it's possibly from a ost card, I don't want to soak it again

thanks!

Mike,


there were no Postcards at that time which used that design. Most probably it was clipped and the backing still adheres,

Pagoda

As mentioned, the red PP cancel can indicate a newspaper/periodical/printed material usage so it may still be attached to the wrapper.

I soaked it again and the backing paper slid right off

thanks guys!

Un petit peu off topic, but Yvert's digital catalogue offer, covering France, Colonies, Overseas Territories, ex-Colonies, etc, may be of interest. Substantial saving on the hard copies @ €39.90.

http://www.yvert.com/p-23561-abonne...062015-PHILA

Geoff

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but Geoff do you know if Yvert still offers a digital catalog?

Indeed it does - it seems to push them quite hard. Try here, which should link to the various options

https://en.yvert.com/CT-1571-biblio...n-ligne.aspx