One final note relating to Japanese stamps (before moving to other topics)… Recently I acquired a small worldwide collection from dealer, and on back of the book section I found two square cut “BUREAU DE POSTE / SHIBA JAPON / TAXE PERCUE” postmarks. I remembered seeing similar items somewhere earlier, and after some Googling I found an answer.

Japanese Postage Paid postmarks

Taxe Percue means same as Postage Paid (or Port Payé). Likely these were created in situation where postal clerk was out of stamps, and had to apply a postage paid indicator instead… Why French instead of Japanese? I think it may have something to do with French being the official language of UPU.

Too bad these were clipped from the covers. But I’m definitely including these to my BOB section of Japanese stamps.

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