France: Marianne Definitives

hrdoktorx......those curiosities are very nice.Have never seen them before.I will have to start looking for used copies.

Anglobob

To my mind one of the less appealing Marianne definitive series is the one issued from 1955-1959. I don't have the full set as evidenced by this page from my album. Weirdly the lower denominations of this set are priced higher than the rest of the individual stamps. According to Scott these are the 6fr fawn and the 12fr green. I have yet to see these in any collection I have bought to date. In the catalogue they are not pricey but, apparently, they are still hard to get.



As I was looking at this set in the catalogue I glanced at the notes and realized there are several different types including at Type I and Type II of the 18fr, the 20fr and the 25fr. I have only the Type Is of the 18fr and the 25fr but I think I was able to identify at least one each of the Type I and Type II of the 20fr below.

Scott says the following about the 20fr Type II: "On the 20fr the 2nd type has a well formed "2" and the horiz. lines of the "F" of the denomination are longer and of equal length." Here is my example of the Type II. It is the only one I was able to find and I have about 16 copies of this stamp. I have included a close-up of the denomination for comparison.





Here is the Type I stamp, which seem to be the most prevalent, for comparison. Also note the color difference between the one above and the one below.

Some other items from this series that I had set aside on a separate Vario page are these. 3 of them are singles with selvedge retained and of these one has advertising again and a nice socked on the nose cancellation. I also had this other on piece 20fr that I saved for some reason because of the Cote D'or cancellation.

darkormex I have these, the 6F  unfortunately suffering removal from a sheet by scissors.... it "would" have been a very nice stamp.

These are the only examples  of these I currently have

anglobob , am I correct that this postmark was stamped at Dijon railroad station then?  I guess I never bothered to find out more about the postmark. I also found this Wikipedia description of that station in Dijon.

Gare de Dijon-Ville

Here are my holdings for this set.

First from my Harris album pages:



And the 18 Fr green issue, type II, recognizable at the serif at the base of the 1:



as well as the 25 Fr issue:



And then, in my stockbook I find:



The 20 Fr type II I have on cover (the only such cover out of a set of a few dozens featuring that stamp that I inherited from my late grandmother's archives):



with a zoom on the stamp and cancel:

I always liked this series and often thought of starting a collection of them, but never got around to it.

That 12fr green with a postmark from 1955 looks to be in better shape than me, what with me being as old!

Mr. Philatelist...Can you help identify this stamp? All I know is it's from France and it's RED!



 $9.75

Ha! Despite looking exactly the same, there are five different catalogue numbers represented by the above group of non-denominated 3fr red values. Below are the five different stamps separated out from the above.

From left to right we have the Sc. 2595, perf 13; Sc. 2604, Serpentine die cut 7, Sc. 2605 perf 13 horizontal coil; Sc. 2835C perf 13 horizontal coil and Sc. 2835A serpentine die cut 6 3/4. The basic design difference of these last two is that the are inscribed RF at lower left instead of LA POSTE.  Out of curiosity does anyone know why this change was made? Does it have something to do with the move to a common currency?

Indeed, as darkormex inferred, the change in the label at the bottom right of the Marianne series from "La Poste" to "RF" was done on Jaunary 1st, 2002, when the Euro entered public circulation. This was also (as any new calendar year is) the opportunity for a rate increase, so it was a way to easily identify for the postal staff which stamps where in what denomination. For the red stamp with no denomination, which stands for the first-class domestic mail rate (i.e. delivery guaranteed the next business day within metropolitan France), these are equivalent to the US "forever" stamps so in principle one can still use these ones from nearly 20 years ago and they would be still be valid, even though their sale price at the time was 41c and the rate is 97c today. The green undenominated stamp is for the "lettre verte" (green letter) rate, which is one step below the red stamp rate, and guarantees delivery within 2-3 business days and promises to use carbon-neutral delivery means (hence the "green" in the name, although I have my doubts about the practice, and think this was more a gimmick from La Poste to allow itself more delays in mail delivery without getting the public too upset).

And the Euro half of the same series:

hrdoktorx , these are great. I will have to look for both types. I have a lot more of these on a stock page that I have accumulated but have not printed a page to mount yet. How many denominations of the franc denominated issues have the "hair in ear" variety? All of them?

Perhaps this link has already been posted earlier or on another thread, but a stamp collector I know from another forum who regularly interacts with my Definitively Stamps page posted this website all about Marianne issues of France.

Marianne: a French national symbol, with French definitive stamps

Going backwards in a time a bit-  Yvert 712 1Franc 50 rose  carmibe
  the stamp on the right fits the description

the stamp on the ;eft. just a faded copy,  or more pale rose? or under inked?

the size disparity between the two is not an optical illusion The image fields are the same,  but stamp on the right is slightly taller overall

perfs vary slightly   L 14.25 x 13.5  R 14 x 13.5

If you look at the engraving there are some deviations- on the left, more break sin the lines on the cap, the neck of the dress (bottom right) not as distinct, The chin line is less defined?  or am I just reading things into this that are not there?

darkormex certainly a possibility, but there are a number of "variants"  that seem to go beyond less ink. The perf difference is interesting... perhaps another printer. (?).. and the overall height - I can cover the smaller stamp with the large

Likely a mystery that may never be solved.... i can't decide whether to adapt my pages to show it... I only have the two examples (and it doesn't particularly intrigue me quite enough to go on a buying spree...), still, I would like to see other images (hint, hint)

Ny scanners issues have been resolved (IP address got corrupted(?))  anyway, 1945 France, Marianne de Gandon 6 F blue Y&T 720

on left 720h "lines connected"-  if you look at upper left, under the cap line, the first "locks of hair" connects with the next lower locks (lines connected). The lowest locklower "strand" is not as long as #720, but it is not broken into segments.

in the middle is 720, and what is commonly seen- the lines do not connect

on right is 720i (used) if you look at the lowest locks on the neck (just above the RF) the lowest strand is broken)  at least as best I can tell from the text and pictures in the several catalogues. I looked through 20+ stamps that I have and only found the one 720i, and the 720h I purchased on Delcampe all #720 stamps are pretty consistent

i will be committing blasphemy  and separating the two left stamps for display on the pages) (may also lose the selvidge)....,