FRANCE. 71st SALON PHILATÉLIQUE D'AUTOMNE - PARIS 2017


After some 71 shows, the Paris Salon Philatélique d'Automne organized by the Chambre syndicale française des Négociants et Experts en Philatélie (CNEP) remains the largest annual philatelic fair held in France and also one of the main fairs in Europe.

You can read articles on all Salons Philatéliques d'Automne since 2005 both on this website and in the different issues of VARIABLE.

The Salon d'Automne 2017 was held from November 9th to 12th in Hall A of Espace Champerret. Without any major changes to previous shows, the event again brought together more than 80 stands, including 60 dealers associated with the CNEP, the main French publishing and philatelic associations and many philatelic services, some of them represented by philatelic companies. As usual the FFAP and GAPHIL organized a small philatelic exhibition.

The honoured guest country in 2017 was Germany, in commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the Franco-German friendship treaty. This was the subject chosen by the CNEP for one of its blocks with a personalized stamp. The other block, designed by Claude Andréotto, who recently passed away, is dedicated to the Gare Montparnasse.

One of the main attractions of this philatelic fair is the anticipated sale of new philatelic issues at the Phil@poste stand, some sold exclusively during the Salon d'Automne, such as the vignettes LISA. In 2017, Phil@poste again released two LISA issues.

One of the designs is dedicated to the guest-of-honour-country. In this case Geneviève Marot's composition features two Berlin monuments, the well-known Brandenburg Gate and the not so well known Oberbaum bridge.

The current Oberbaum bridge over the river Spree opened in 1896. It was designed by Otto Stahn, in the Baltic Gothic style. The two towers are a reminder that the site was Berlin's river gateway for hundreds of years.
The double-decker bridge links the districts of Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, the bridge became the border between East and West Berlin.

The second design is by Elsa Catelin commemorating the 40th anniversary of the issue of the Sabine definitive series of stamps (1977-1982) by Pierre Gandon.
In addition to the vignette, Phil@poste also released one booklet of stamps and a block dedicated to this theme.

For the design of the Sabine definitives, Pierre Gandon was inspired by the face and head of the Hersilia heroine, who appears in the centre of 'Les Sabines arrêtant le combat entre les Romains et les Sabins', a 1799 oil painting by the French painter Jacques-Louis David. The central area of ​​this painting is reproduced in the vignette LISA, and also on the back cover of the '40 ans de la Sabine de Gandon' booklet.


As on previous occasions, Phil@poste announced that both LISA designs would be available at Monétel LISA 1 kiosks with mechanical/ink printing and at IER LISA 2 kiosks, with thermal printing. To enable this, they manufactured 20,000 self-adhesive labels with each design on normal paper, and another 20,000 on thermal paper and installed two kiosks of each type in the Salon. Furthermore, to supposedly reduce queues in front of the machines and simplify the sales process to visitors, Phil@poste decided to put on sale sets of five stamps previously printed ​​with a Brother thermal printer, similar to those installed a few months ago in many French post offices (see article, also published in VARIABLE 46).
This is where the problems started ...

For the printing of the stamps on the Brother machine, Phil@poste used the old software installed in the IER LISA 2 postal kiosks. But the stamps obtained with this combination are not identical to those issued by the LISA 2 kiosks (see images below), thus leading to the appearance of a third printing variety which caused a degree of anger and frustration amongst many collectors.
In addition Phil@poste decided not to sell single vignettes LISA on its stand only sets of five values produced with the Brother printer. This decision caused further irritation with many other visitors who had to either buy this expensive option or join a long queue at the kiosks.

In addition Phil@poste supposedly used fifteen thousand thermal labels of each design to issue 3,000 sets with the Brother printer, leaving only 5,000 labels available for sale at the Salon's IER kiosks. Of these 5,000 labels a large part had been kept back for significant dealer pre-orders. The result was that the two IER LISA 2 kiosks sold out of the remaining labels at the end of the first day with the result that visitors could not use them for the next three days.

Consequently, only the two obsolete Monétel LISA 1 machines were 'in operation' during the four days, although with continuous problems and breakdowns which left the kiosks out of service for long periods. These issues caused widespread frustration and a lot of tension between customers and the technical staff, who were completely overwhelmed by the situation.
All in all, a real disaster and a shame for Phil@poste.

'Maintenant cet appareil est hors service. Veuillez nous en excuser' ( Sorry, this machine is out of service), one of the most frustrating (and also increasingly frequent) messages.


Monétel LISA 1 (normal paper and ink printing), IER LISA 2 (thermal paper and printing) & Brother (thermal paper and printing)

For ATMs issued by the Monétel - LISA 1 machines and with no changes to the indicators program and current postage rates in 2017, the basic set was made up of four values - E 0,71 EUR - 0,85 EUR - P 1,10 EUR - LETTRE 1,70 EUR, corresponding to the basic rates for economy domestic mail (E - Ecopli), priority domestic mail (without prefix), priority international mail (P), and priority domestic mail for letters above 20 g. (LETTRE).

The minimum face value programmed into all the kiosks installed at the Salon Philatélique d’Automne 2017 was 0,71 EUR, the current basic rate for economy domestic mail.
Test imprint
E - Inland post Economique / Ecopli Inland post Prioritaire
P - International Priority mail - Prioritaire LETTRE - Inland letters above 20 g.
Receipts in French for the purchase of the 4-values set, with the list of stamps issued and the total paid

The two thermal printing IER LISA 2 kiosks installed in the show were programmed with the old software or postage rates program, which printed stamps with only the face value (upper images). Neither machine was connected to La Poste and so it was possible to obtain stamps with 28 different indicators (14 shipment types + 14 franking complements).

Inland economic mail - EC    ECOPLI Inland priority mail - LV    LETTRE VERTE
Inland priority mail - LP    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE International priority mail
IP    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE

The sets for sale issued with the Brother printer include the five basic or main postage rates for domestic and international mail. Although the thermal printing is similar to the IER LISA 2 kiosks (detail below, left), it is possible to clearly distinguish both types of printing ... at least, before the thermal printing starts to fade within a few years ...


Inland priority mail - LV    LETTRE VERTE Inland priority mail - LP    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE
International priority mail (Europe)
IP    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE
International priority mail (Rest of the world)
IP    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE


Phil@poste produced Salon’s general postmarks and special first day postmarks for all the stamps released. Among them, one featuring the Brandenburg Gate, and another special for the Sabine de Gandon issues.

They also used a Neopost cancelling machine with an imprint, which was faulty, relating to the show.

Another point of interest, the signing sessions with more than thirty stamp designers, attracted a large number of visitors to the stand of the association, Art du Timbre Gravé over the four days.
Fortunately the friendliness and charm of one of the LISA stamp designers, Elsa Catelin (below), more than made up for the rather bad experience, as far as LISA issues are concerned, at the Salon d'Automne 2017.







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This page was created in December 2017
and last updated:  11.01.18 . English edition rewritten by J. Gareze (11.01.2018)