France: Color of Sower 25 centimes

Hi, octavius , and thanks for your post.  Do you use a catalogue?  If not, you may want to consider getting access to one.

Below is a snip from the 2021 Scott Classic Specialized, showing the listings for France, Sc169 and Sc169a, which seems to cover your situation.  I don't know the source of the variation in the color, but the Scott Catalogue lists two colors, which seem to fit your stamps.

Excellent response, Stan (stainlessb ), thanks for that.... I figured that there was probably more to the story in a catalogue better suited to the question at hand.  That said, at least Scott noted two major color varieties, which is why I passed that along.

Also, great point about the printings continuing until 1938.

Stanley,
Many thanks for your input.
Looks like I need to do a bit of reading up!

OK, cool.Thanks for the reply.

I think it might be Latin. “ Idem”. Which means “ the same as before”. In this case it refers to the previous shade vert-gris .

So some green-grey to olive.

All this Latin and French is coming in useful at last!

a collector after my own heart!

The Type IIIC has been a bit of a conumdrum.  The example below appears to have straight cut side perforation (roulette), the top  2 stamps have the R in FRANCAISE with the slant leg starting closer, but the bottom stamp does not (?)  and the end of the lower slant leg of the top stamp is a bit more poimnted (triangular) than the bottom 2 stamps

The center stamp does have a nice semi "anneau lune" 

however, the question remains are these IIC or not?  and as a side note, the pre-oblit for this denomination exists as "roulette", but I've not looked closely at the as of yet.


as to color variants I would agree that there may be a few, and these were pulled at random


so much to contemplate!

Here are close-ups of thr R in FRANCAIS  top(left)  to bottom (right)

all scanned at same resolution and same crop field

Hi Stanley,

I should preface all of this with the fact that French stamps are not my specialty.  I concentrate on Canadian stamps for the most part. 

Unfortunately, I only have the Dallay catalogue. I do supplement it with some online resources, but it sounds like you found those already. I have some French language skill, but I still find "philatelic French" to be difficult at times.  It is my understanding that what pertains to the blue sower, also pertain to the brown-yellow sower, in terms of the "Types".

I look at your three "R"s and I still think that they all display the characteristics of Type IIIC. Only that the one on the left, less so. If you compare other letters, such as the "A", you will see that they are all different as well. The left stamp has the same right leg as the others, only that the little chunk that is taken out of it is simply a little less predominant that on the other two.

As a separate stamp, I believe the left one would not be identified as IIIC, but as an integral part of your three stamp coil, it is definitely IIIC.

I found when sorting through these Sowers, I am left with about 20% of stamps that I simply cannot identify. Many because the point I need to view is under a cancellation mark. But there are many others I simply cannot find any of the details I am looking for. Sometimes I find a stamp with one of the tell-tale details, but it simply does not have the other one.

So I think we sometimes have to resign ourselves to the fact that every stamp is not going to be identifiable or will fit exactly into one of these types. Heck, I have seen plenty of stamps that were expertised by two firms, and they came back identified differently.

Everything about you three stamp coil screams IIIC to me.

Thank you both for your comments!

In the 2021 Y&T back on page 1342, ROULETTES, No. 25   (235a)25c  jaune-brun Type IIIC is listed, no image, No. 47 (PR57a) is the same stamp pre-oblitre

I also have a growing supply of "unable to identify" Sowers (and Sage... and most all the definitives that have variants!  Cancellation being the most common culprit, though a few that are clear but don't seem to fit in any of the categories (or several =at the same time!)

this site here  mentions 'coils" for the IIIC and  the R, but no other details

It also mentions  a Type V  (booklet) for all the 25 c denominations in this series.  prehaps hrdoktorx , you will know- do these have one straight edge, or all sides perforated?

Y&T 2021 pg 1040 CARNETS  mentions 4 stamps (La Philopod) and 12 stamps (Lafleur) , the name in () references the cover and LaFleur is shown but the only has a image of a single stamp (perforations all 4 side). I I am interpreting this correctly these were simply cut blocks from full sheets???  Although examples of other full panes show the advertisement  selvedge... perhaps that is the onloy way the be certain the stamp is from a booklet?


The site referenced  gives  the following detail only:  

                                letter c in denomination rounded the lower part longer than the upper.

Now is a great time to be selling- prices seeming to be going through the roof... and reproductions seem to be on the rise.  Looking for semeuse booklet stamps this morning I came across a number of 'reproductions" offered... however the item title doesn't reflect this.

If anyone has an example of the 25 c juane-brun Type V Booklet stamp(s) I would love to see an image, especially the "c" in the denomination to better understand what the description

rounded the lower part longer than the upper.  is referring to...exactly

I've now looked a number of IIIB and IIIC and the 'c"s all seem to be longer than upper... perhaps the "rounded" references the end of the lower seep???  IAlthough complete books are a bit pricey, I wouldn't think that the use of these booklets of stamps was that uncommon.  Then again as the Type V is not listed separately, perhaps  the single stamps from the booklets have no specific value, unless with advertising tab? (or booklet pane)

Thank you gstamps for the CPL.14!  I did not find anything specific to the 25c yellow brown (one article about pre-oblitres and what appears to be a special paper (I have bookmarked), and the printing of the pre-oblitres ("overload"), and a very interesting downloadable PDF on the Semeuse cameé 25c blue varieties.

also this and then this!

paper shortage article covering 1942 - 1950


 an excellent site source and it will transleate from French to English!

searching for  Carnet 235 avec timbre 25c jaune-brun I found nothing specific, but a pair with a center advertising panel, but it was not uniquely identified as to Type (and photo wasn't enough to see much difference in the 'c'

other sites the images would not load (your message above is just showing me small blue boxes withy a question mark... I am guessing they might be images, but they are not opening

Thank you so much for your effort!!!

Hi gstamps

I see that it

shows the ball in the 2 is flattened, the aforementioned R in FRANCAISE and a dot in a fold at the bottom of the dress   (much more detail!)

I will need to spend some time with this passage:

Type IIIC will be the last of types III identified by philatelists, but it is the first stamp to be printed and issued in type III in 1922. It corresponds to the wheels printed on a rotary.  This stamp only exists with masted teeth.

I'm unsure of 'wheels printed on a rotary", but I think the 'masted teeth" may refer to the roulette??

As to the booklet stamps, I would imagine they are like the 15 c La Philopode you showed.  The one website makes mention of the 'C" in the denomination having a characteristic.  I did find one pair of jaune-brun 25c with  advertising, but it was a gutter pair with the advertisement between.  They were asking 40 Euros

I exported/saved the Sower page as .pdf file (after converting to English) . Quite helpful.  Now I will go through these in high res and separate. Most will be (based on CV) IIIB.