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| Fig 8 |
Probably at the turn of the century, Maury produced a new poster stamp aimed at promoting stamps collections for sale. The stamp (fig 8) depicts Mercury (?) and states that 'Collections of postage stamps are guaranteed authentic'. We have these stamps in blue, dark blue, orange, red, violet, grey, black, blue-grey, green and turquoise. One further variant was produced, and these were for stamps sold in packets. Around 1900, the packet trade became enormous and major stamp companies produced packets of stamps for sale in a wide variety of shops.
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| Fig 9 |
Maury certainly printed four poster stamps, using the previous ones overprinted (fig 9 and 10). We have '50 Timbres pour 2f 25' overprint on pale brown (fig 9), and a different font for '50 Timbres pour 1 fr' on red (fig 10). '60 Timbres pour 1f 50' is found on dark blue, whilst '80 Timbres pour 2 fr' is on orange. Just before he died, Maury wrote and published the Histoire des Timbres-Poste Français, a book of approximately 400 pages, and was the most important history of French stamps published at that date.
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| Fig 10 |
He was an international judge, and was on the jury of the first UK international exhibition (1890, sponsored by the London Philatelic Society - now the 'Royal'). He had a special interest in heraldry,
but he died before his book could be published. Such a book would have been aimed at the Cinderella market of 1900s, as 'coats of arms' were avidly collected then, often in special albums produced by companies such as Maury. He also wrote an interesting book entitled Le Coq Gaulois in which he traced the popular origin of the emblem, and this work was honoured by the support of the French Government (PJGB Vol 17, page 259 [1907]). He was President of the French Society of Postage Stamp Dealers, a post which he had held since its foundation. M. Maury was the recipient of several decorations, notably Officier d'Académie in 1885 and Off icier de I'Instruction Publique in 1900. He died on November 29, 1907 at the age of 63.
Communication with the outside world was permitted with prisoners allowed to write one nine-lined postcard per week and two four-page letters per month. Each postcard or letter was charged at IOpf. Money was provided by the British Government, and indeed, all funding and equipment to sustain life in the Camp came either from private sources or from the British Government.
The appropriately named Albert ', Kamps established an internal post office in late Spring 1915 that provided for 25 post boxes, as well as delivery of mail to prisoners. He was also charged by the authorities with the responsibility of distributing and collecting external mail. On July 18, 1915 he launched the Ruhleben Express Delivery (RXD) that produced local stamps, postal stationery and even money orders. However, the German Authorities external to the camp got to hear of the post, illegally organised under Reichpost regulations as of April 1, 1900, and on April 3, 1916 the RXD was closed down and all stock of stamps and stationery were impounded. Kamps was sentenced to a period of solitary confinement for organising an illegal post
However, communications with the outside world continued through what was known as the Kriegsgefangenen-sendung - a free prisoner of war mail service. Late in 1916 permission was given for the internees to produce their own Christmas card that could be posted to Britain. The rare card was solely designed by one of the British internees, Healey Hislop, and it was printed with the Kriegsgefangenen-sendung legend to permit its free postal carriage. An example is shown, both picture and text sides; these Christmas cards are rather scarce. |
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