France

Merci beaucoup, M. Cotard!

Thanks to Eric Contesse for this very beautiful cover on my favorite topic sent from the 62nd Salon Phialtelique d'Automne held in Paris from 6 to 9 November.

Below is an excerpt taken from Eric's blog; I'll let his own words explain as they are very good:

The State of Israel (and Israel Postal administration) was this Stamp Exhibition's special guest to celebrate the 60 years of diplomatic relations between France and Israel.

To commemorate this event, the French and Israel Posts have issued in preview sale on November 6, two joint stamps dedicated to the 60 years of first postal flight between the two countries, between Haifa and Paris specifically.

These two stamps are on the left on the cover below. The € 0.55 (domestic priority mail) stamp illustrates the Haifa's departure of the Air France DC 3 on June 11 1948 and the € 0.85 (worldwide priority mail, including Israel) one illustrates its arrival in Paris on June 12 1948, after stopovers in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Nice.

The view of the city of Haifa is a contemporary's one because we can see the modern "Sail Tower" skyscraper, built on the seafront from 1999. The Shrine of the Báb with its golden dome, part of the Bahá'í World Center, is also represented on this stamp's foreground. This Shrine is inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List since July 2008.

The two stamps also reproduce a letter of June 9 1948 that was carried during this first postal flight. This letter is stamped with three "Doar Ivri" stamps from the 1st Israel stamp issue and includes the purple label (type I) "Premier vol Etat d'Israël-France" ("First flight State of Israel-France") from Haifa.