1877 Peace And Commerce .15 French Stamp - A Question

Hi all,

Well, I found a very interesting (to me, I am VERY new to the hobby) French stamp in my collection.



This one appears to be the 15 centime (100 in a franc) "Peace & Commerce" stamp.

From my understanding this is a "Type II" stamp. This is because the "N" in "INV" (that is at the very bottom left of the stamp) is below the "U" in "REPUBLIQUE". And the color appears to be correct as well. Blue on Blue on blue-ish

I'm amazed that this stamp is from 1877 and is already 131 years old.

The "Peace and Commerce" representatives on the stamp, have been referenced on some stamp sites as "Pax and Mercury". Pax is the greek goddess known as Peace and Mercury is known as a greek/roman god for shopkeepers and merchants (hence commerce).

From what I have read, 600 million of these stamps were made. Wow, seems like an extraordinary amount of one stamp for the time, but maybe that fits.

This stamp appears to be worth .58 cents or less in US dollars!

It might be interesting to collect them all.

Would that still be possible today?

Thanks!


JR

Hi Johnny, and welcome to the forum. Yes, these older stamps are gorgeous and yes, you can still find most of them very reasonable priced. If you like a little guidance on the prices go to www.stampworld.com . And good luck!

Peter

Thanks Peter!

I think I'll start keeping an eye out for them.



JR

Most of them are readily available - I shouldn't have them otherwise - although some are more expensive. A couple - Yvert 73, the unissued 20c blue and Yvert 84, the 1c black on Prussian blue - are rare.

Wow Geoff,

Really great!

Thanks for sharing that awesome collection!


JR

Johnny
Thank you - there are lots of varieties (colour etc) of these. I have lots to sort!
Enjoy your collecting.
Geoff

These stamps are not worth much for most of them;excepting certain values.
Certain postmarks increase the value;Colonies for example..also Mint.
Below a lot sold for $6.00 on e-bay.These are not Bit Coins..

Really neat collection Geoff, and some fine postmarks too, thanks for sharing . I am curious, how do you organize all the varieties, sub-types etc as in your Yvert catalog? Do you make complimentary self-designed pages for all the extras, to follow after the pre-printed pages with the 'majors'?

Hi Perf12,

Yeah, not Bit-coins for sure! ;)

That little pile you have there looks like some good ones!


JR

Jon - the answer is that I haven't got very far! The Yvert pages I use are for a simplified collection (although, irritatingly, they include some unissued and very rare stamps) - much less detailed than older Yvert albums. I've started working through my earlier material, principally to try to find postmarks. As I have quite a lot, I thought it would be fun to try to identify them, then group them by Département. Once I've done it, I'll put colour varieties etc on blank leaves in the Yvert, and the postmarks in a stock-book. But I'm a long way behind you!

Geoff, thanks for explaining. I like your priorities; postmarks first! Studying them on the classical French is pure joy. Interesting idea to sort by department, I've simply sorted them alphabetical but it's starting to grow so massive that splitting into departments could make it more manageable. Easier with the PC & GC numerals, just keeping them in numerical order.
About being behind: this is no race, the fun is being underway at a comfortable pace I'm sure your result will be awesome. And I did not get fully satisfied with my Vario setup anyway, so I am actually the one behind as I am intending to build custom pages from scratch, including most of the varieties, shades, sub-types etc. Will be fun, just need time and the nerve to get started!

I started on the Blanc/Merson stuff, then set it aside for a while - this is hard-going, if you have a few other interests. I'm not sure why I talked myself into buying expensive Yvert albums and pages. I suppose they're good for the core collection, and they work better for modern stamps, where the varieties tail off. But my conclusion is that blank quadrille is usually better and much cheaper!