Unique Specimen Postal Stationery from the Madagascar UPU Archive

 

Luxembourg postal stationery from the middle period (the Allegory, Adolphe, and modern Arms issues) lacks the printing varieties found on the classic stationery.  However, it is rich in postal history, providing an abundance of rates and markings.  And specimen stationery like that seen below will ensure that your middle-period stationery collection doesn’t become boring.

Madagascar Specimen Stationery

Beginning in the mid-1890s and continuing into the 1920s, the Director of Posts in Madagascar maintained a reference collection of UPU-distributed specimen stamps and postal stationery.  The stationery was glued to folio pages in pairs, which were then tied with a 42 mm. red handstamp reading:

Postes et Telegraphes
Madagascar
Collection de
Berne

Each folio page from Madagascar’s archival postal stationery is unique.

Here we see that Madagascar archived five copies each of the 5c single and 5c+5c double Arms issue and three copies each of the 10c single and 10c+10c double Arms issue.

What other Luxembourg postal stationery exists from the Madagascar archive?  And what exists from other archives, such as the Mauritius archive from which material is now on the market? 

Items like this keep philatelic judges awake, even those with diminished vision, but they are not for the budget-minded.