Marianne, the symbol for France, has had many faces, including Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, and Laetitia Casta. In sculpture, painting, and other forms, she represents la République. This Delacroix painting is probably one of the best-known images.
With each new presidency comes a new image for the Marianne French stamp. La Poste has just made public the image of the new stamp, designed by artist Yves Beaujard, which will be available for sale on July 1, 2008. Hmmm. I wonder. Are the stars encircling her head referring to Dom Perignon? Or perhaps cozier Franco-American friendship?
I love stamps, so I thought I share the earlier Mariannes with you, too.
Meanwhile, the cost for sending letters within France has gone up from 54 centimes to 55 centimes, effective today. Time to go to your neighborhood Banque Postale and buy some one-centime add-ons!
11 comments:
Hey Polly, I have a question about the new price of stamps... I have some stamps that I bought a month ago, but they don't say 54 centimes on them... so could I still use those even though the price went up? Or will the post office somehow know that I bought them before the price increase? I don't know how this works in France...
Thanks for visiting; I'm glad some of my French books caught your eye. This painting is powerful - so dramatic; I really don't know about Marianne, I'll have to do some reading!
www.diaryof1.com
Hi Jennie-- I don't know about the stamps with no price - I think that's the 54c purple one... check out laposte.fr link in the blog post.
Hi Jennifer - the wikipedia link on Marianne has some good info and certainly links galore to other places with more info. Happy reading, and let me know if you come up with some great books on her.
I guess our US equivalent is Uncle Sam, but he's not quite an official symbol. And Marianne is so classically beautiful. Not so for Uncle Sam!!
the first poster is right -- the 'letter' stamp, that red one, doesn't get affected by price increases. That is, it's good for one letter under whatever weight is considered the standard, sent to europe. So no need to get a one-cent stamp...
Ariane -- thanks! Always the source of all knowledge, toi.
So, unlike the US where everyone has to run around finding and adding on penny-dreadful stamps when rates go up, in France if you bought a letter stamp it's forever good for a letter? I like the logic (but I did just add a stamp to a prepaid envelope, bc I hadn't read your comment yet. C'est la vie.) But I assume that anything with an actual price on it will go up by one centime? I couldn't open the Poste tarif pdf, and should learn not to add hasty rejoinders to my posts in vague attempts at wit!
Yes,
As Ariane said, stamps with no price on them have the current value of a standard stamp (valid to anywhere in Europe for a letter of 20 grams or less) whatever that value is (i.e. 54c until Friday and 55c from yesterday).
I doubt they're valid forever though. As the design of the stamp changes, I assume the old ones have now an expiration date, but it's one year or something along these lines, no rush.
I'm not sure what you mean by "anything with an actual price on it will go up by one centime"? Do you mean anything among stamps, or anything anything?
If it's the latter, the answer is no, everything increasing at its own rate (the media are talking quite enough about the rising cost of life these days).
If you meant the former, I'm not too sure, but the increase in the standard rate doesn't necessarily mean an increase in all the other stamp rates (gotta double check that one).
I didn't know that about the stamps. Thanks.
David,
Thanks for the clarification!
No, I meant any stamp with a price on it will increase by 1c. Other commodities are probably increasing at a faster rate (oh, oh the yogurt!)?
With my finicky Adobe I couldn't get La Poste.fr's full tarif explanation. Let us know what you find. It's not so much the cost of the extra centime that had me on alert (a total of a euro more per hundred letters mailed: NBD) but rather the concern that a letter might not get sent if in didn't have sufficient postage.
The US was trying the "Forever Stamp" which is unaffected by price increases. It doesn't seem to have caught on - I rarely see one on an envelope.
I don't think Americans will start using the Forever stamps until after the next price increase. Theoretically, they have already bought them at 41cents, and are saving them until May 12, when the price for mailing a letter will be 42cents.
Hi Polly, just found you, and am really excited to learn a little more about my namesake! Am slightly ashamed not to have become an expert on the subject yet, but very good to have a starting point. All the best, Marianne
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