A Page Of Early Monaco

Here is page 1 from my Monaco album. Tell me what you think.

A page of true classics, at their best....

A lovely page of Monégasque stamps, Very nice indeed.
Beautiful designs from the resume of Eugene Mouchon,
his work always has magic.
Curiously on the Prince Albert design, we have
an allegorical figure of Monaco, but she has no name!
We have Helvetia, and Marianne, but this lass, who is she?
Devota?

I like my display with all stamps perpendicular,
do we push the stamps down in the crease of the mount?
or leave them free floating, as yours ?

Heavens, no. You want that nice, even border all around. A hinge would help hold the stamp nice and perpendicular, right in the middle of the mount...



On a serious note, sizing mounts to not allow a lot of float helps with keeping things perpendicular, no? Still not precise, I realize.

Nice representation of a first page !!

mselledge's page offers the optimum with regards to the care of the stamps, but for display, hinged on a nice album page
of light buff would look magnificent for mine.

Thank you for the kind words. My daughter actually started my Monaco collection. 3 years ago I had just picked up collecting after many years and was catching up my US collection. My daughter spent the summer in Europe and brought back a packet of stamps from her visit to Monaco. She was very happy with my reaction to her gift, and so began my Monaco collection.

Very nice. I really like early Monaco, probably up through the early Princess Grace years.




She is Monaco, at least as far as allegories go. For what its worth, an issue of Mekeel's from December, 1913 describes her as "the deified figure of Monaco bearing the arms of the Grimaldi."

As an aside, the motto on the stamp, Deo Juvante, is translated by them as "God Aiding."


C.

Very nice mselledge! Now let's see the second page!

If you were to see the back of the 5 franc rose green, you might change your mind about hinging these. I think you can tell from the scan that it has a significant thin where a hinge(s) has been improperly removed.

Very nice!

Definitely much further along than my early Monaco. Mine looks like a sparse rural community compared to your urban sprawl!

One thing I like about the early Monaco -- I don't have to worry too much about fakes, and the color varieties are relatively easy to ID.

Thanks for posting the pic!

k

Here is some more information from the December 27, 1913 issue of Mekeel's that I referenced above. By now we've probably peeled off the readers not thoroughly interested in the topic, so I'm going to reproduce part of the article at length where it discusses the first issue.

***
THE POSTS AND POSTAGE STAMPS OF MONACO. By the Rev. G. E. Barber

A Paper read before the Society of Stamp Collectors, and awarded the
Bronze Medal of the "Stamp Collectors' Fortnightly."

...
The 10 values of this series are 1 centime, olive; 2 centimes, violet; 5 centimes, blue; 10 centimes, brown on yellow; 15 centimes, rose; 25 centimes, green; 40 centimes, blue on rose; 75 centimes, black on rose; 1 franc, black on yellow; 5 francs, carmine on green. Of the last two there was probably only one printing, and that not a large one. The 1 franc is rapidly becoming scarce, while the 5 francs is, of course, a well known rarity, and was included by the late Mr. Crocker in his sets of "Fifty Rare Stamps," at the Exhibition in October. Already catalogued at four guineas, a prominent dealer assured me recently that it would certainly become a "£20 stamp." The stamps of Monaco have never been printed for speculation, and consequently have been issued to the post-offices in numbers suitable to their postal requirements. These requirements are, for the size of the Principality, fairly considerable, owing to the immense amount of visitors. Nevertheless, with only two principal post-offices, the number of stamps issued is not enormous.

This accounts for the fascinating number of very distinct shades, adding immensely to their interest. Of the rest of the 1885 issue there are from four to eight quite distinct printings and shades —in the two lowest values one might say distinct colours. There are also differences of paper and gum. The latest printings, when in blocks with margins, are distinguished by the marginal colour-bars first used in the French stamps in 1890. One rare error of plate exists in the last printing of the 2 centimes stamp, in which one stamp on the sheet shows an extraordinary triangular mark on the prince's neck; the cliche was corrected during the issue. Essays of this emission exist in black on orange without value, and also, of the whole series, on card in the original colours, a few also on ordinary paper and on pelure.

Forgeries exist of the whole series; of the four higher values very dangerous ones. I possess forgeries of the 40 and 75 centimes used postally.

***

There is a lot more information in the article, and it can be found through Google Books. Information may, of course, have changed in the nearly 100 years since this was published, but I thought it was interesting.

Collin

BeeSee, you asked for it, but you may not have realized what you've gotten yourself into. Here is page 2.

Collin and Rod,

You have taught me more about ealry Monégasque philately in three days than I have learned in three years collecting. A neat thing I do know about it is that the monarchy has always been active in collecting. Prince Albert I began the collection with a purchase in 1917. Prince Ranier was touted as having one of the finest stamp collections ever assembled.

Collin,
that's what we like to see (deafening applause)
some meat in the sandwich

Keep posting like that.
I am envious you have Mekeels

Another great page. Okay, I'll be the one to ask...how 'bout page 3?

Rod, if this whole internets things isn't a fad, pretty soon we'll all have Mekeels.