» Vive la France – some good reasons to collect French stamps

Vive la France – some good reasons to collect French stamps

Email | Print

I confess that for a long time I didn’t like French stamps. The problem was pretty much the same as with any foreign country that one collects randomly – what you get is usually definite series with messy cancellations. Luckily my collection of French stamps has grown from my early collecting days, and currently France is one of my favorite European countries to collect. This is pretty much due to interesting themes that go on year after year.

Famous french persons on stamps

Personnages célèbres is a series of surcharged stamps with portraits of famous French men and women. One of my personal favorites from this series is Edith Piaf stamp shown below. I like very much the way French stamp designers use colors and shapes to make the portraits something very different from the average dull looking “heads”.

1990 Edith Piaf Stamp from France. Michel #2786, catalogue value 1.20€

1990 France Chanson singers (chansonnier) used booklet. Michel MH21, catalogue value 12€

Beautiful France

Série touristique is something I think many stamp collectors are familiar with. It showcases various tourist attractions across the France. Usually these stamps are beautifully engraved instead of the ghastly photos.

Tourist attractions on french stamps - which design do you prefer? On top 1990 stamp showing The Briare Aqueduct (Michel #2795, catalogue value 1.00€). On below, a 2003 stamp from French regions stamp series (Michel #3698, catalogue value 1.00)

Fine art on stamps

Ceuvres d’art series displays the works of art on large sized stamps. Fine art is always a matter of personal taste, so this series is sure to attract some discussion; especially with modern art issues.

France postage stamp with art from Chagall

2002 France postage stamp with "Eve and the serpent" by Marc Chagall, a pioneer of modernism and one of the greatest figurative artists of the twentieth century. The glass window painting is located in the cathedral of Metz. Michel #3635, catalogue value 1.00€

Journée du Timbre

My personal favorite is of course Journée du timbre series. These are surcharged stamps issued to celebrate stamps and stamp collecting. In the old days topics were related to philately or history of postal services. Modern issues (from late 1990’s onwards) rely on classic comic book (/graphical novel) figures such as Tintin, Asterix and Lucky Luke (as well as works of more modern comic book masters like Moebius/Giraus or Bilal) . I know several “older” stamp collectors dislike the modern Journée du Timbre topics, but for someone like me, who has grown up reading these comics, these are a perfect success.

French stamps showing comic book figures. On the left 2004 issue showing Mickey Mouse (Michel#3786, catalogue value 1.00€) . On the right 2003 issue (Michel #3685, catalogue value 1.00€) showing Lucky Luke by Morris; the stamp shows the cover of Wester Circus.

Want more?

Sign-up to weekly newsletter and get notified when new articles like the above are published at Stamp Collecting Blog. The email-newsletter is sent to You once a week (during the weekend) and it contains a summary of latest new entries and discussions.

Show that you liked this article - and support Stamp Collecting Blog!

Clicking the Like-button below promotes this article on FaceBook:
Clicking the +1 button below promotes this entry on Google and GooglePlus.

Thanks for your support!

This article is filed under Philatelic tidbits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

AdA wrote :

Hi,

Célèbres is not the title of the series (you don’t call a series ‘famous’), but it was ‘personnages célèbres’ (famous people).
Plus, it’s written ‘La chanson française’ and out of the 6 people, 1 was not French….

Regards.

Keijo wrote :

Hi AdA,

and thanks for making a correction. Since french (nor english) is not my native language, I do make silly grammar mistakes every now & then

best,
-keijo-

PS. You have one great looking blog with interesting stories. I just addedd it to my links section & feed reader.

Thanks for your kind words.
However, my blog is only in French, I have the dream of, one day, translating it into English. It’s not gonna be soon though…

Luckily we have Google Translate, Babelfish and other online transaltion services. They make foreign blogs somewhat easy to read even with limited language skills. For example I have been reading postzegelblog.nl for last few months – and I know only very few words in dutch….