French cancels - 00 Introduction

The longer I collect, the more I am intrigued by the endless cancels that can be found on stamps.
Some time ago, the internet had the discussion whether there are more 'doors' or more 'wheels' in the world.
For us, collectors, I would like to pose a new question... are there more 'stamps' or more '(postal) cancels' in the world ?

1849-1852

From 1849 on, french stamps were cancelled with a grid-shaped cancel.
In French they are called 'grille' (grill/grid).
As the shape of this grid is a diamond, ('losange' in French), the first cancels are called 'losagne(s) grillé(s)'.
These type of cancels are seen in black, blue and red, and although very old and interesting, they don't offer much variation for the advanced collector.

losange grillé noir (black)

losange grillé rouge (red)

losange grillé bleu (blue)

Till 1852, these cancels were used to devalue the stamps.

1852-1863

In 1852 a similar cancel was introduced, this time a diamond shape made out of 8 x 8 dots.

losange 'muet' (mute)

For the french colonies, a mute grid was used - no indication inside the diamond.
And within France, the diamonds got a letter or number in the middle of the cancel.
For the offices in Paris (district offices) at first a letter of combination of letters were used with roman fonts (1852-1854) - the type 'roman'.

losange romain

They were replaced by letters 'sans sérif', the so called type 'bâton'. (1854-1863)

losange bâton

In my later post, I will come back on those type of cancels.

For the rest of France, and later also in the colonies, the diamond cancels were assigned with a number.
Till 1863 those numbers were 'small' (petits chiffres - in French)

losange 'petit chiffre'

These 'small numbers' are subject to later posts.

1863-1876

In 1863, after reorganising the list of 'small numbers', and with the opening of new post offices all around France and its outside territories, the small numbers were replaced by large numbers.
(gros chiffres).

As this is such an elaborated collecting, I will come back on this later on.

losange 'gros chiffre'

Within Paris, the local districts changed their diamond cancels with a star shaped variation.
These cancels are known as the 'étoiles chifrées' (numbered stars).

étoile chiffrée nr6

Also these cancels will be presented in a later post.

From 1876 on

Finally, from 1876 on, the system of numbers cancels was replaced by cancels with a city name, date, hour ... 

I realise that this rough indication of cancel types of the late 19th century is far from complete.
Numerous late use of cancels of the older type can occur on later stamps.

The purpose of the articles that will follow this introduction, is to help collectors that are not familiar with the french stamps and their cancels, and maybe to find new collectors for this more than interesting part of postal history.

small and lager number cancels

To be continued...