After four months with no new issues of vignettes d'affranchissement in France, the last quarter of 2018 was especially busy for those interested in this subject, with seven (!) new designs. On the weekend of October 20th/ 21st 2018, a philatelic event was held in Valenciennes, in the Hauts-de-France region, north of the country, which brought together the regional philatelic championships, the Congress of philatelic associations Nord-Pas-de-Calais and the new 'é-max'.
	'é-max' is the new annual initiative of Les Maximaphiles Français, the French association of maximum card collectors. It is a non-competitive philatelic exhibition of maximum cards, with the aim of promoting this attractive field of collecting. And it is precisely on the occasion of the celebration of this first exhibition that Phil@poste released the issue of the new LISA design.

This philatelic event was held in the Espace Pierre Richard, a multipurpose municipal hall in the south of the city. This venue was however, a bit small to accommodate the different programmed exhibitions and activities in addition to the usual associated dealers/commercial fair.

The new vignette LISA is a design by Claude Perchat, depicting the main facade of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes.

Phil@poste produced 20,000 labels with this design, printed on thermal self-adhesive paper, with phosphorescent vertical stripes at the edges of the design.

The Musée des Beaux-Arts is a municipal museum of painting and sculpture designed by the architect Paul Dusart, opened in 1909 and totally renovated in 1995.

The well-known designer Claude Perchat attended the exhibition over the weekend, showing her works for La Poste -among them, several ATM designs- and participating in signature sessions.

La Poste set up its usual temporary post office in a small space at the opposite end to the entrance. Visitors could purchase some philatelic issues, and the vignette LISA from the two IER LISA 2 Évolution kiosks installed at the exhibition, as well as obtain the two special postmarks prepared for the event. Both postmarks are illustrated with images of the Musée des Beaux-Arts.

During the exhibition, the two kiosks issued variable value stamps as per the current tariffs with face values at or above the domestic economy rate or 'Ecopli', 0.78 EUR. The postal kiosks are programmed with four different shipping codes or prefixes printed in front of the face value; AA for domestic priority mail, CC for domestic economy mail or 'Ecopli', DD for domestic shipments 'Lettre Verte' and 'Lettre Suivie' or domestic tracked mail, and IP for international priority and tracked mail ('Lettre Suivie Internationale').
At the request of organizers and collectors, La Poste arranged a temporary modification to the program installed in both kiosks which prevented the printing of the 2D Datamatrix code in the upper right corner of the stamps and the La Poste logo in the lower right hand corner. However, during the two days these machines did not issue receipts nor were they able to issue stamps for tracked mail ('Suivi').

Inland economic mail - CC    ECOPLI	Inland priority mail (D+2) - DD    LETTRE VERTE
Inland priority mail (D+1) AA    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE	International priority mail IP    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE

After the exhibition, the LISA design was also available in one of the IER LISA 2 kiosks installed at the Valenciennes main post office. In the new location, the machine issued the stamps according to the current tariff program installed in all La Poste kiosks, with all the available shipping options together with the Datamatrix code and logo printed at the right hand side of the stamp.

Inland economic mail - CC    ECOPLI	Inland priority mail (D+2) - DD    LETTRE VERTE
Inland priority mail (D+1) AA    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE	International priority mail IP    LETTRE PRIORITAIRE INTERNATIONALE