Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Did all of these postage due issues see legitimate postal usage, or were they issued simply for collectors? It seems odd that the good people of St. Pierre et Miquelon, or France for that matter, would short change the post office so frequently. Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.
David
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Note that postage dues are used on incoming mail so it is nothing to do with the parsimony of the locals. I would imagine that with many small territories people writing from other countries can easily get the rates "wrong". For instance if writing from Italy say is it the rate to France or the rate to Canada you use? Now of course it is counted as Metropolitan France but then.....?
Malcolm
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This reflects a similar problem to the one I posted a couple of months ago in the 'Worldwide' topic.
I think we can safely assume - unless anyone has any evidence to the contrary - that all issues from colonial/dependency entities were commissioned, designed, printed and distributed with the following priorities, in order of significance:
1. For the worldwide stamp collecting fraternity
2. For advertising the benefits of colonialism and the graciousness of the colonial power.
3. For promoting tourism
4. For administrative use by the colonial power
5. For personal use by the residents of the colony
(I should say that for small-population post-colonial countries, and with the obvious exception of no.2, the above applies as well.)
Although this is a personal (and no doubt tendentious) judgement, I wonder if any serious academic research has ever been done which would support, modify or contradict it. Alas, political and sociological analysis seldom, if ever, descends to the matter of postage stamps.
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I don't disagree with the foregoing analysis in general, however I feel that perhaps St.Pierre et Miquelon is untypical.
Firstly the population, small as it is, is I think totally French, rather than "downtrodden natives", as some sections of the political spectrum would define them. As such they presumably have cultural and familial ties with the "homeland". There is probably more "genuine mail" to/from St.Pierre than another colony with 50 or 100 times the total population. More modern issues are collector fodder but I think that the postage due usage is genuine. Collector fodder postage dues are normally mint or CTO and not found on envelopes.
By the way for 2) above can be substituted "promoting the benefits of government by corrupt tribal despots practicing ethnic cleansing on other tribes" and other less extreme levels of nastiness.
There is quite a lot of genuine mail from the colonies of European countries before the more enlightened colonial powers started training up the aforementioned "downtrodden natives" to responsible positions.However from the end of World War 2 to Independence this seems to be somewhat scarcer- however this was the time the collector-fodder syndrome was getting into it's stride, and that might have some bearing on it.
Malcolm
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According to Scott, St. Pierre et Miquelon issued some 340 stamps before 1950. A good deal of these were overprints of French stamps and a good deal more were stamps issued to promote the Free French during the Second World War. That is all well and good, if not excessive for a colony with 6,000 residents. My real question has to do with the number of postage due stamps issued in the late 19th and during the first half of the 20th Century – some 47 issues, again according to Scott.
Did all of these postage due issues see legitimate postal usage, or were they issued simply for collectors? It seems odd that the good people of St. Pierre et Miquelon, or France for that matter, would short change the post office so frequently. Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.
David
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12:41:36pm
re: St Pierre et Miquelon Postage Dues
Note that postage dues are used on incoming mail so it is nothing to do with the parsimony of the locals. I would imagine that with many small territories people writing from other countries can easily get the rates "wrong". For instance if writing from Italy say is it the rate to France or the rate to Canada you use? Now of course it is counted as Metropolitan France but then.....?
Malcolm
Login to Like
this post
re: St Pierre et Miquelon Postage Dues
This reflects a similar problem to the one I posted a couple of months ago in the 'Worldwide' topic.
I think we can safely assume - unless anyone has any evidence to the contrary - that all issues from colonial/dependency entities were commissioned, designed, printed and distributed with the following priorities, in order of significance:
1. For the worldwide stamp collecting fraternity
2. For advertising the benefits of colonialism and the graciousness of the colonial power.
3. For promoting tourism
4. For administrative use by the colonial power
5. For personal use by the residents of the colony
(I should say that for small-population post-colonial countries, and with the obvious exception of no.2, the above applies as well.)
Although this is a personal (and no doubt tendentious) judgement, I wonder if any serious academic research has ever been done which would support, modify or contradict it. Alas, political and sociological analysis seldom, if ever, descends to the matter of postage stamps.
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07:10:28pm
re: St Pierre et Miquelon Postage Dues
I don't disagree with the foregoing analysis in general, however I feel that perhaps St.Pierre et Miquelon is untypical.
Firstly the population, small as it is, is I think totally French, rather than "downtrodden natives", as some sections of the political spectrum would define them. As such they presumably have cultural and familial ties with the "homeland". There is probably more "genuine mail" to/from St.Pierre than another colony with 50 or 100 times the total population. More modern issues are collector fodder but I think that the postage due usage is genuine. Collector fodder postage dues are normally mint or CTO and not found on envelopes.
By the way for 2) above can be substituted "promoting the benefits of government by corrupt tribal despots practicing ethnic cleansing on other tribes" and other less extreme levels of nastiness.
There is quite a lot of genuine mail from the colonies of European countries before the more enlightened colonial powers started training up the aforementioned "downtrodden natives" to responsible positions.However from the end of World War 2 to Independence this seems to be somewhat scarcer- however this was the time the collector-fodder syndrome was getting into it's stride, and that might have some bearing on it.
Malcolm
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