In 1928, HAVAS had been successfully marketing the first franking machine in France for four years and decided to conquer new territories. To keep things simple and to limit risks and costs, HAVAS chose three geographically close French-speaking countries: Monaco, Algeria and Morocco.
Article de Luc Hamelin de l’Académie de Philatélie
Monaco
From 1928 to 1944, there were only six A machines in service in Monaco and nine different values were listed. Two companies, Société des Bains de Mer and Barclay’s Bank, used two machines simultaneously: one with the value of the domestic letter and the other with the value of the international letter. These two values
are used for most of their users’ mailings, with the engraving evolving with each rate change (nine different values are known).
Algérie
In Algeria, four machines were used, or more accurately, two times two machines. In fact, two machines bear the legend ‘République française Algérie’ and two other machines ‘Algérie France’, the latter
having been brought into service later. For all four machines, twelve different values are known.
Maroc
Morocco stands out for the number of machines listed: twelve machines with serial numbers ranging from A 0001 to A 0019 (seven serial numbers were never identified).
Morocco stands out for the use of A machines in post offices. For three machines, use by a post office is proven. For the others, use by a post office is based on the small number of prints observed (a company uses its machine to the maximum to make it profitable), and on the fact that these observations concern envelopes without a business
letterhead (sometimes with a private individual’s address on the back), or even postcards with private correspondence..
There is, however, one exception: the prints of the A 0008 machine can be found
on envelopes headed for the same company, and in far greater quantities than the others. Two letters sent by airmail to foreign countries and taxed for insufficient postage reinforce the idea that they were used by a company: what postman in the 1930s would make a mistake about the amount of postage? Especially twice.
The A machine launched the franking revolution in the workplace. More than 1,200 machines of this type were sold and registered in France. The attempt to
enter foreign markets was not a great success: six machines in Monaco, four in Algeria and twelve in Morocco. The distance, the motivation of the sales staff and
perhaps also the new types of machine that appeared at the end of the ‘20s, make it difficult and therefore interesting today to build up a collection of these prints.
