ITEM OF THE MONTH

 M A R C H     2  0  0  5

FRANCE (OR SPAIN, OR AUSTRIA)   ?
This is, as you might guess, a postcard from a French beach. In fact it shows the "La Cote d'Azur" and the Brougham - Hotel and its beach in Cannes, France.
In the following image I have enlarged the part where you can see the Volleybal courts.
Now you may ask: And what makes this postcard so special. The answer is on the reverse side.

As you can see, it was sent on July 27th, 1960, from Masnou, Barcelona, Spain to Wien (Vienna) in Austria. Since Mr. Paul Riedel, the addressee of this card, could not be located at the given address (see label "Unbekannt - inconnu"), the card was returned (see cancel "zurück - retour") to Mr or Mrs Magrane in Barcelona.
This Mr/Mrs Magrane seems to have been a French person on holiday in Spain. S/he writes in French ("bones vacances"; with spelling mistake, it must be "bonnes vacances") and not in Spanish or German. S/he possibly had brought this postcard from France to send a holiday greeting to Austria.
It also seems that the postman tried to deliver the card at two different addresses. The sender had addressed the card to "Austellungt" (a word that does not exist in German, s/he surely meant "Ausstellungsstraße") number 68 / 24, and someone changed this number to 63 / 24. But since Mr Riedel was at neither of the two, the card was returned to Barcelona (see blue arrow).
To me a very interesting philatelic item.

 

If you would like to comment ont this item or send in an ITEM OF THE MONTH for publication, please do so, clicking here: