The collection is growing!

I am officially super excited! An ebay auction for the France 1946 Airmail set by Gandon just finished and I won it for US $4.25, which I think is pretty good value.

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But that's not all. Today I also won an auction for a France 1945 set, which includes all of the Marianne de Gandon definitives and the two other regular stamps he engraved that year.

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And to top it all off, while browsing yesterday, I found a set of Buy It Now 1945 large format Marianne de Gandon's with a couple of the stamps bearing ink flaws for just a few dollars. At least I think they are ink flaws.

So right at this time I am one very happy camper! Suffice to say I won't be doing much in the way of spending now for a couple of weeks!!

Until next time...

I Found...A Signed Cover

I have only just started building my deducted Pierre Gandon collection. Less than a couple of weeks, actually. It all started one day while I was perusing the Philouest website, which if you haven't already taken a look I would strongly suggest doing so. It is packed with great info. One interesting feature is that it has the number of stamps each engraver has worked on for France. Now being someone who likes a good challenge I looked to see which engravers ranked the highest. Decaris is right up there with a shade over 200 stamps. As my followers will know, I have a blog dedicated to my Decaris collecting journey already.

So who else was there? One name really stood out from the pack with 369 French stamps to his name. Pierre Gandon. I am assuming that this number is a list of all his stamps, such as the many Marianne defiinitives, not just engravings. But I'm not 100% sure on this. This will be something I'll have to look into. This number does not include the stamps he engraved for French Territories, which I am led to believe is an even larger number than what he did for France. This prolific engraver intrigued me. I am currently working my way through collecting Czeslaw Slania's enormous body of work and also that of Albert Decaris. So I thought why not three times the charm. I am labeling this epic journey My Big Three.

I was pleasantly surprised when I looked through my engraved stamps that I already had a good start to my Gandon collection. But what I really wanted to give it a good kick-start was something signed! Enter the mighty Internet. After a bit of a browse I found one that was within my scanty price-range. I checked a few more expensive examples first to ensure the signature looked right. There's probably only a remote chance that someone would bother forging a signature of an engraver, but in this day and age you can never be too careful. The signature did seem quite legit so I forked out a little cash. 

The signature adorns a 1975 Arphila FDC, issued 9 November 1974. The over-sized stamp was designed and engraved by Gandon from a painting by Alfred Sisley, titled Canal du Liong. The cover hasn't arrived yet, so all I have is the seller's scan. Not ideal, but it gives you an idea of my purchase.

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I really look forward to its arrival. I now have a signed item. My collection hath begun!

Until next time...

I Found...Another Decaris Stamp

A few days ago I spoke to a fellow Decaris collector on a stamp forum. Through him I was made aware of a Decaris engraved stamp that I had no idea existed. I usually always like to verify for myself if a stamp was indeed engraved by Decaris (not to impugn the word of the collector who told me about the stamp). So far I haven't been able to find any information that conclusively proves the stamp was engraved by Decaris, but I am still assuming he did.

With that said, let's take a look. The country of origin of the stamp, I have to say, surprised me somewhat. The stamp in question is from Peru! It was issued in 1957. Below is lovely block of 4 I managed to track down. When I look closely at it I can definitely see signs of Decaris' style.

Until next time...

Stay Decaris Crazy!

I Found...Some More Year Sets

With a bit of strategic searching on ebay I have now managed to find complete France year sets for the decade of the 1970's for a reasonable total price. Well, I think it's reasonable, and I guess that's all that really matters.

My latest purchase, which completed the decade, was actually two year sets in one. The purchase included 1969 and 1970. A total of 82 stamps. I managed to find this batch for just over $20 AUD, which I consider quite bargain at 23c a stamp!

It goes without saying that I very much look forward to the arrival of this lot of stamps.

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On a slightly different topic, you may recall from a blog I did recently, in which discussed display issues. I believe I have - albeit tentatively - come to the conclusion that displaying my stamps by engraver instead of by year may be the better option. Now all I need is a whole box of hagners for all these new stamps!!

Until next time...