French Postal History -- Cote D'or

I'd like to connect with other fellow collectors who are interested in postal history of France, the Department of Cote D'Or. I collect from Ancient to current. My goal is to acquire a postmark for every town that had a post office at one time. The challenge for me is finding resource references, which are almost all in French. I belong to APS and The French and Colonies Society. If anyone has some material to sell, let me know. Thanks

Red, can you be more specific regarding the resources you are looking for?

As an example of what is available, one can find "Annuaire des postes, ou manuel du service de la poste aux lettres et aux chevaux" for free in Google Books. I was reading through one from 1857. It has a complete listing of all the post offices in France, as far as I can tell, and it wouldn't be too hard to search down the lists for all the locations in the Cote D'Or.

You might try getting in contact with this site, which deals with French cancellations:

http://marcophilie.org/

Or you could try this dealer in Dijon. I didn't get there in opening hours, but the shop looks crammed with stuff:

http://www.le-site-de.com/abon-loui...n_95444.html

Geoff

I am a keen collector of French and have lots of surplus items. I could have a look for specific post marks if you let me know which you are looking for. I have only a few items prior to 1840 and unfortunately they all form part of my collection..
Best of luck in completing your task.
GibChris

KGB -- Thanks, I've seen that resource and its good up to 1857. Jean Pothion, "Dictionnaire des Bureaux De poste Francais, 1575 - 1904," is even better because it goes to 1904.But it seems there is not much past 1904. What I need is a reference that lists towns alphabetically or alphabetically by Departments, the the date the post office was opened and when it was closed, if it closed. For example, in Pothion he lists the town "Genlist (20) [20 being the old department number before the end of WWI, now its 21] PC (small numerals)1383 and GC (large numerals) 1638, then 10/1781 (date when the post office opened). It is still and active post office. I would like a reference like that for the modern period, 1904 to present.

Geoff -- You wrote: You might try getting in contact with this site, which deals with French cancellations:

http://marcophilie.org/

Yes, a great site. Discovered this a couple of years ago and well done, but again it doesn't list the post offices in Cote D'Or and their openings and closings, if they closed.

I will try the Dijon dealer. Have you purchased from him?

To Gibchris --

Thanks for your reply. I am looking for postmarks from Cote D'Or. The clue is that the post marks will have (20) or just 20 at the bottom. Name of the town is on top. Later postmarks had "Cote D'Or" on the bottom. The smaller post offices after 1880's have an outer ring of dashes or dots. Some of them have hexagon outer frames, solid or dashes, these go into the present. It would probably easier for you to send a scan or description of the postmark, e.g., double circular date stamp (dcds), "Dijon/18/Aout [August]/75 (1875)/(20)." Thanks for your help.

My thought was that the people at the site might be able to give you further background.

Didn't get to the Dijon dealer's shop - or I did, but it was after closing time. Too many other attractions in Dijon! Shop appeared absolutely piled with material, however.

Do you think this resource would be of any help?

http://www.priceminister.com/offer/...erselle.html

One might be able to find a copy in the States.

I assume you have the list of current offices.

If not, http://www.pagesjaunes.fr/annuaire/...-21/la-poste

To KGB -- Thanks for the Link to Priceminister. I wrote to the seller asking if the list are towns in France, because the description is: Liste complète des Bureaux de Poste des Pays et Territoires compris dans le ressort de l' Union Postale Universelle which sounds like the national post offices not the individual town post offices. But then again the book weights 2 kilos. We'll see what they say. AT 40 Euros it would be a nice price. The other resource is like one I found on La Posste, the current post offices that are open. Thanks for your help and time.

BurgundyRed

Red, I'll keep looking--if that's okay. I'm intrigued by your interest in this one area.

As for the "Liste complète..." there are so many, many pages that I thought there would be some hope for it. If it's of any use, you might try to borrow a copy from a university inter-library loan. While 40 euros is a fair price, I can't imagine what the postage (and insurance) would be for such a heavy tome sent from Europe.

To KGB -- Thanks for your help. I just received an answer to my question to the seller of Nomenclature Internationale Des Bureau de Poste.

"PriceMinister This international postal book gives the name of all the postoffices of the world which are in activity in 1977. Whith this book you cannot know what is the date of the birth of a postoffice.This is not an historical book. It was utilised in the postoffices of France. Necessary to have postal relation with all the offices of the UPU (from ONU) in letters, parcels an telegrphic ..

So this is not what I want. I still work on this.

I've asked a few dealers on Delcampe.fr and they claim nothing like that exists after 1900. Seems strange that there wouldn't be follow-up on research done by the giants like Pothion.

In a similar way I do the same thing with the state of North Dakota in the United States. This subject has some good references that give the name of the town, the date when it opened and when it closed, the names of the postmasters, and even a rating of rarity from those which are still open to those closed in the last 40 years (rating is 1) to those with no known examples in existence (the highest rating is 9).