Casey Jones Rail Road Unit of the ATA

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TRAINS on POSTAL STATIONERY FRANCE PRÊT À POSTER ENVELOPES

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JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK INTO THE POST OFFICE...

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(privately produced)

TRAINS ON FRENCH P.A.P. ENVELOPES With the exception of a few countries such as Russia and Rumania, the volume of postal stationery issues has never been high, making it a relatively easy area to collect in terms of volume. On the other hand, information about postal stationery has been less available, making it more difficult in terms of knowing what to look for. France has created recently an entirely new type of postal stationery that complicates things tremendously both in terms of number of issues and lack of information about them. Some have a rail theme. CJRRU member Loïc Marchat of France sent us several examples of these, and we asked him for more information. These are called "PAP = PRET-A-POSTER = Ready to Mail" (i.e. prestamped, post-paid) envelopes and were first issued plain nationally in 1994. Starting in 1996 they were issued with locally-chosen added designs, and those can be bought only in the Post Office of the town of issue. Since they are locally issued, it is hard to find information about them. It works much like meters: any town administration or tourist office can ask the Post Office to add their design to some prepaid covers, these covers are sold inside the post office until they are sold out. Cost is a few cents more than buying stamp + cover individually, and they are sold usually in packets of 10. My collection contains 10,000 different illustrated PAP, and is one of the biggest (2nd or 3rd in France). I know some kiloware producers who collect tons of letters and I buy all their stocks, as I am sure the PAP have a good future, especially those with topical interest (about 10% of the PAP). MOREOVER, according to an official announcement of French Post, it is planned that these PAP will replace the local pictorial postmarks (many of which can be seen on my site at http://postmarks.tripod.com) Quantities issued - you can consider that 50,000 is a very big issue, 10,000 middle, 1,000 small (but note that 1,000 to 5,000 is a very current quantity issued, because small Post Offices don't want to take the risk of 1,000's of unsold covers). Some PAP are announced in the philatelic magazines, but very few (only those announced by collectors). Some are reprinted when they are sold out, and you can find different versions (same illustration but different stamp). In my opinion, these PAP are promised a good future, especially the ones with topical connections! When they were issued, philatelists did not want to collect them, because they said they would kill stamps! Their popularity increased when the first illustrated PAP appeared, but there are still few collectors. I bought a few years ago all the existing stocks I could find (I have about 25,000), and I continue to do so, but it is not so easy now, prices are increasing). I don't know if my collection represents 10% or 80% of all the illustrated PAP issued! The first PAP with a rail theme appeared probably in 1998. I estimate there are 30/40 different PAP about railroads in my collection (trams included), and I have about 20/25 different duplicates. There is no catalog, so no way to be informed of the new issues (except discovering them!) and no society. In order to buy new bulk lots for my collection, I am selling my topical PAP at $1 or $2 each (depending on the quantity of duplicates I have). We did a quick search on the Internet, and found over 100 pages created by collectors of or dealers in illustrated PAP envelopes, so the specialty does seem to have a few adherents. If you wish to contact Loïc about his extras, you may write him at Loïc Marchat 7 rue Dedieu Villeurbanne, 69100 FRANCE or e-mail him at loic@fcsport.com Some of these prepaid envelopes may be available from Loïc at his web site . TO THE LEFT WE SHOW ALL THE EXAMPLES OF THESE PAP ENVELOPES WITH A RAIL THEME THAT LOIC OWNS. IF YOU CAN ADD TO THIS VIRTUAL COLLECTION of TRAINS ON PAP ENVELOPES, SEND US AN EMAIL AT As I discovered when I tried to find the "right" way to present the images to the left, one major challenge of collecting these envelopes is organizing them. There is no catalog, no identifying information like the Romanian Cod numbers, no date as on the Russian issues, so the only method I can think of is to sort them alphabetically, either by place of issue, or the text on the item. Place of issue is not always known or made clear on the item itself, and some have no text - or too much! - so the issue is open. I have NOT tried to sort these, but I have put similar designs together. Note that some designs have been issued in two forms, both non- denominated and in Euros.

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