A month after the closing of España 06 - Exposición Mundial de Filatelia, held in Malaga, a new World Philatelic Exhibition opened its doors, in this case in Brussels.
On the occasion of the Exhibition, La Poste decided to release 2 new commemorative ATM issues that could be obtained from the 2 automatic vending machines (AMIEL model SIMA 1351 T) installed in the philatelic fair. A further example of ATM issues just for collectors.
Both designs are manufactured on self-adhesive paper and sized 50 x 25 mm. (60 x 28 mm. with the waxed backing paper). The printing of the face value is mechanical using red ink. The Amiel machines were programmed to issue ATMs with the 6 basic postal rates for a standard letter up to 50 g., and this therefore included all the complete button sets: 0,46 (minimum possible value) - 0,52 EUR (normal and priority domestic mail), 0,60 - 0,70 EUR (letters to European countries, normal and priority), and 0,65 - 0,80 EUR (letters to the rest of the world, both normal and priority mail).
The new ATM issue commemorates Wetteriana 2007, the Philatelic Exhibition held on March 24th and 25th in the Scheppersintituut of Wetteren. In Wetteriana 2007 different philatelic events come together as a regional competitive exhibition, the celebration of 25 years of Themafila Wetteren and the 17th edition of Premio Massari, the international philatelic exhibition on the topic of music. For the occasion, the Belgian post office, La Poste, released a new commemorative ATM design, that could be obtained from the AMIEL SIMA 1351 T automatic vending machine installed in the exhibition. The ATMs are printed on self-adhesive paper with fluorescent fibres size 50 x 25 mm. (60 x 28 mm. with the white waxed backing paper). The printing of the face value required by the user is mechanical using red ink. The new design is a work of the team MVTM - Myriam Voz & Thierry Martin. It's dedicated to the International Philatelic Exhibition on the music theme Premio Massari, and commemorates 100 years of Edward Grieg’s death. The ATMs only exist with 6 values, corresponding to the basic postal rates for standard letters up to 50 g., and pre-programmed into the Amiel machine from the date of issue:
The 2nd commemorative ATM issued in Belgium in 2007 is dedicated to the European philatelic exhibition, Europhila 2007, held at the Heilig-Hartcollege (HHC), in Maasmechelen, on September 1st and 2nd 2007.
This issue is especially unusual, because after the changes to postal rates on August 1st, and with the removal of the economic or non-priority mail option for domestic shipments, the minimum value, € 0.52, became the postage rate for a standard domestic letter up to 50 g. The other 4 basic postal rates programmed into the machines are retained: € 0.70, € 0.75 (Non priority mail to Europe and the rest of the world), € 0.80 and € 0.90 (high-priority mail to Europe and the rest of the world, respectively). But it is also the last time the face value of a stamp for a domestic letter in Belgium was issued in Euros (see the next issue).
From October 1st 2007 the Belgian Post introduced a new and easy franking system for domestic mail. Instead of the face value being printed, the stamps (both traditional and ATM) have a symbol, the number 1, 2, 3, 5 or 7, within a circle. The value for each symbol follows a system of multiples. These are stamps with permanent validity, similar to the ones already in use in many other countries, such as Spain’s Tarifa A, that can be used at any future date with neither the need to know the current postal rates nor to add stamps to update the franking in case of increases in postage rates. As for the ATMs and the values programmed in the Amiel vending machines, from October 1st 2007, the ATMs for domestic mail up to 50 g. will have the symbol  in the center of the label, replacing the printed value of € 0,52. The rest of values programmed are for international mail and continue with values in EUR: € 0.70, € 0.75, € 0.80 and € 0.90.After the changes to postal rates in Singapore (read article), Belgium is the second country in the world issuing ATMs with permanent validity, for domestic mail.
Once again, the ATMs are printed on self-adhesive paper with luminescent fibres and are sized 50 x 25 mm. The issue of both the ATMs and the booklet of self-adhesive stamps, was advanced by 2 days prior to the official first date of issue, on Saturday September 29th, in De Brouckère post office, Brussels. The Belgian philatelic service, sensitive to the bilingual needs of the country, prepared 2 first day postmarks, with different textual settings.
© J. Jove - M. Sans. ATEEME. Variable value stamps study group. All rights reserved This page was created in December 2006 and last updated: 12.10.07 . English edition rewritten by S. Goodman (12.10.07) |
