COVER N. 405 -  FRANCE

Postmark: Nouvel An Chinois 1er Jour Année du Dragon 26.01.2024

Posted on the 26th January; Received on the 31st January 2024

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Happy new year for all the Dragons out there.....one cannot fail to notice the flaming (quite an adequate adjective, uh?) increase in postage that this FDC from France exhibits in the form of an 8% rise in the price of the humble paper rectangle....

BUT, 8 % is kid stuff, if we consider the obnoxious 14%  increase that the Portuguese operator - CTT - has put in force for the current year for European postage (13% rest of the world; 6.5% domestic)...Inflation in Portugal in 2023 was 4.3% so a full 10% jump above defies justification in my humble opinion, to say the least....

Anyway, guess I'll have to be a bit more parsimonious with my sendings.... this is but an hobby, not an end by itself, and a I will always treat it as such.

Anyway, please excuse my rant, but I really feel that I, as a consumer, have again been hit in the purse… and it does hurt a bit!

Merci Roland, en plus, le timbre est fort joli!

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a believer in astrology. On the other hand, Dragons, being powerful and almost unbeatable creatures, can be seen as  dangerously close in nature to despots and dictators, so, in our current state of affairs, let's hope the creature that is said to inspire the year does not inspire some  mortals more than they have already been unfortunately inspired......

La Poste issued two stamps on 26JAN2004 celebrating the Chinese New Year, dedicated to the Dragon. The 1,96 €, (up to 20g international) is seen on the cover, while the 1,29€ (up to 20g, domestic) is similar in design, although with an different dragon image over a blue background.

The First day Postmark was issued in the French capital, the beautiful city of Paris.