COVER N. 505 - FRANCE

Postmark: 58 - Corbigny Nièvre 26.08.2024

Sent of the 26th August; received on the 2nd September 2024

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Strangely enough, a letter posted on the same day, in the same place, arrived at my letterbox four days later.

As a matter of fact, the cover I included in the previous post features the same postmark as the one I'll be presenting now, but this last one took much longer to check-in....

Mon sincère remerciement, une fois de plus, Jean-Pierre, pour une autre jolie lettre.

- La Bourse de Paris, Palais Brongniart, conceived in neo-classical style by architect Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart (1739-1813), the name also behind the layout of Paris' and France's, and probably Europe's if not the world's most famous cemetery - Père Lachaise - under a commission from none other than the emperor himself, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Having died before the completion of the building, Brongniart would be laid to rest at the cemetery he designed, and the construction would go on under the supervision of Éloi Labarre (1764–1833), to be finished by 1825, and inaugurated the following year as Paris' Stock Exchange, a function it retained until 1987.

Approaching its two hundredth anniversary, the Palais Brongniart was chosen to illustrate a 1,29 € stamp issued on the occasion of the 94th Congress of the  Fédération des Associations Philatéliques (French Federation of Philatelic Societies ).

The stamp illustrated with an in-taglio image of the façade of the palace, was issued with a se-tenant vignette reproducing a statue by Francisque Duret (1804-1865), an allegory of Justice, dated of 1851, located on the left corner of the façade of the building.

- The washing machine... where would we be without it? One of the great inventions of the 20th century, for sure and one which really helped create more leisure time at home.

Even though manual washing machines had been around since the late 19th century, the great leap forward came in the early 20th, with the first electric operated washing machine, conceived by American engineer Alva Fisher, patented in 1910.

On 30SET2000 La Poste issued a 5 x 3 Franc/0,46 € stamp set dedicated to Great Events of the 20th century, and it is curious to notice that all but one are events that directly resulted in the improvement of living conditions  for the common people. As such,  alongside the stamp dedicated to the washing machine, chronologically identified has having occurred in 1901, the set comprised stamps evocative of the first step on the moon (1969); the right for women to vote (1944); paid holidays (1936) and the Universal Human Rights Declaration (1948).

To complete the required postage, three Marianne stamps (2 x 0,10 and 1x 0,01 €) of the 23JUL2018 issue were used.

Once again, the letter was mailed from the city of Corbigny, Nièvre Department, in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, and further to the manual postmark a mechanical obliteration was also applied to the letter.