With the collaboration / photos by J. Meyer
Paris 2024 is and will be synonymous with the Olympic Games. Small wonder therefore that the Musée de La Poste’s major exhibition in 2024 is dedicated to an Olympic … and postal theme.
The exhibition ‘Marathon, la course du messager’ (‘Marathon, the Messenger’s Race’) has its origins in the alleged feat of the Greek messenger Philipides, who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory of the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC; a race that naturally evokes a sporting and postal feat!
The exhibition, part of the Paris Cultural Olympiad, opened on May 15th 2024 and displays 160 objects, works of art and documents related to the race and the marathon. Initially scheduled to run for four months, with the closing date coinciding with the end of the Paralympic Games, the museum decided to extend it until November 4th.
As with previous exhibitions, the Musée de La Poste produced a catalogue and several promotional products related to the exhibition, including a new vignette LISA, a personalised folder or “collector’s pack” containing eight self-adhesive stamps, and a postcard collection. All were on sale in the museum’s boutique, though some several weeks after the start of the exhibition; the new LISA was available from July 26th, coinciding with the opening of the Olympic Games, and the collection of postcards was available at the museum in mid-August.
The LISA issue depicts a modified image of one of the stamps from the series that Greece released to commemorate the first Olympic Games of the modern era in 1896 (Yvert 101-109). It is the 60 lepta face value stamp (Yvert 108), a design by Louis-Eugène Mouchon depicting the winged Victory riding a chariot.
As can be seen in the image, the original stamp is in dark grey, although in the LISA issue it has been reproduced in shades of green to allow the information printed by the kiosk to be better seen.
No special illustrated postmark has been produced for these issues. The museum has a permanent date postmark, illustrated with a horse-drawn mail coach which has been in use – with some variations – since 2009 (see article, published in VARIABLE 15), and a further museum handstamp, in use since 2019.
The vignette LISA ‘Marathon, la course du messager’ can only be purchased from the IER NABANCO kiosk installed in the postal museum shop.
This machine works autonomously, i.e. is not connected to the La Poste postal network, and is permanently programmed with the special ‘philatelic software’, and consequently issues variable value stamps without the Datamatrix code. The program does not allow the printing of stamps for tracked mail or ‘SUIVI‘, nor for registered mail, although through the ‘Vignette montant au choix’ (Stamp value to be chosen) option, it is possible to purchase stamps with the prefix AA and the various options for domestic registered mail (LETTRE RECOMMANDÉE R1, R2, R3 & AR), with a minimum starting value programmed which is 0.15€ in 2024.
(English edition rewritten by J. Gareze – September 2024)