Stumped On This 20c Ceres With "Grille Sans Fin" Cancel

I inherited my father's stamp collection. Although I have been a collector myself for decades, he was the real expert when it came to French stamps. I found this stamp among the collection. It is a 20c imperf (or possibly trimmed perfs) with a grille sans fin cancel. It is not a Bordeaux issue because the sheaf of wheat extends too far above the head and because the dots under the eye go down and to the right.

As was discussed in my recent post on the 40c, the diamond grill cancel was discontinued in 1852 (according to marcophilie.org). However, their site has a ? for date the grille sans fin was discontinued.

Could this be a Scott 57 (Y&T 37) from 1870 with trimmed perfs. The only problem is that the margins are quite wide and I have never seen a stamp from that series that had margins like that so you could trim the perfs and still have decent margins. Also, is it realistic to think that the grille sans fin cancel was still used in 1870.

Scott #4 was issued without gum and was not used for postage, so I am ruling that out.

Thoughts?

This is a Ceres stamp with multiple strikes of the grill cancel.

It seems that it is a reprint from 1862 with the grill cancel.It does not have the form of
the "Grille sans fin" cancel.In the link below examples.
http://e-timbres.net/marcophilie/in...pagination=1
The grill cancel continued to be used well after the end date (Paris) in the provence.That
is why even Naploleon III stamps can be found with them.
Some more info:
http://e-timbres.net/marcophilie/index.php

Reprint:
https://www.ceres.fr/vente-sur-offr...ubrique=1003

Thank you, perf12. I didn't know the 1862 reprints were used for postage. That would make it Scott 4d (Y&T 8f). Neither catalog shows these stamps as being cancelled, however.

I see what you mean by a grill cancel with multiple strikes. As I said, my father was the expert. I'm still learning, but that's the fun of it.

Reprints used are scarce,but exist.I havn't looked around yet for used types.If I find something I will post it.

After looking closely at this stamp it looks like a forgery.The letters are too thick
and corner petals are also oversized.the background lines are not conform.The pearls are too big.Things are wrong around the mouth & lips.So it can't be anything other than a forgery.The same cliché of the 1849-50 Ceres were used for the reprint;so many
différences lead to this conclusion.

mdknight; Could you post a better pic of the 20c? I would like too see more details.
It intrigues me.

aren't the different corners (thickness) a hint for a colony stamp? or am I totally wrong here as there is no design difference between the France and the colony stamps?

One thing I learned recently, is that Colony stamps were sometimes canceled in france upon arrival. If this is a colony stamp, that could be an explanation for the grill cancel. The stamp has pretty good margins to be a trimmed perf stamps, but then again this is just my opinion.

I will try to get a better scan and post this weekend. Thanks for you help and interest.

Here is a higher resolution scan. I had adjust it to be less than 200kB, so I'm not if it is any better.

It is most likely the Colonies Imperf 20c Type of 1871.These were used for a short period
before the the perfed Ceres types of 1872.Now the only thing that bothers me is the cancel
grid type which was way out of use in 1871.
It seems to be a variety of some sort.The background lines are conform.The pearls are
a bit more pronounced with almost no space between them.The corner ornaments also are more
pronounced.I think this has to do with the cliché itself and Inking.
If you looik closely you can see many small details common in the two stamps.







https://www.philamurat.fr/timbres-c...tere-tb.html



Another Colonies example.I'm pretty sure now your stamp is from this printing.

Thank you, perf12, for your analysis. I agree with you that it looks like a colonies stamp, which was my original thought except for the cancel. I can think of two reasons why this cancel is on this stamp. One is that some post office somewhere used it much later than everyone else. The other is that the cancel is a fake in an attempt to make it look like a Bordeaux issue. Although an examination of the stamp would clearly show it is not from that issue, the forger may not have known that at the time.

Used price for this stamp around $45 ,mint; around twice that.