Anatomy of the Ceres and Napoleon stamps

This article outlines the anatomy of classic French stamps. Words from philatelic vocabularies but also borrowed from the field of Art describe these masterpieces.

First of all, the denomination of Ceres for the type of stamp below exists only among stamp collectors and is more recent than the official one which is « stamp of type République ».

For each series of stamps, a master die without face value was realized then moveable inserts were « associated » with it to provide all different denominations (facial values).

The Laureate Napoléon 80 centimes Rose, Y&T #32, Sc. #36, Sc. #48, presents a constant defect resulting from the bad calibration of the moveable inserts bearing the value 80c, and more particularly that of the right. Depending on the inking, this defect is more or less pronounced, but still visible: white vertical line corresponding to the edge of the insert imperfectly adjusted.