You have a nice France postage stamp collection..... you wanna feel better about your stamps...... I am still slogging to sort 1000's of stamps that I've been accumulating for the past 40 years, waiting for retirement to finally "get to it"... One thing I like about many French stamps is that they are engraved. There were some very proficient French engravers who produced many, many wonderful postage stamps.
That's ultimately my plan to... in my first video back when I had no clue what I was doing I mentioned that collectibles were part of my retirement strategy. Haven't followed up on it yet, but what I meant was not that it's a $$ maker but it's a hobby that I can't wait to be able to spend more time doing... so collecting stamps now is setting me up for a past time down the road... can't wait... like some folks fish, I suppose
I so enjoyed this video - the historical commentary along with the view of relevant stamps was wonderful! I wish my stamps were in such disarray as yours lol.
C´est vraiment merveilleux ! 👌Amazing assortment of French stamps with some background history lesson, highly appreciated. A little correction: this war from 1870/71 is not called the "Franco- Prussian War", but "The Franco- German War". Prussia was just one of several German states fighting against the French Empire, though it was the biggest besides Bavaria, Saxony, Wuerttemberg, Baden etc. Greets from GER, U.
French stamps are cool! I keep all mine in a Scott Album, but so many in your card system looked so familiar that now I’ll be rewatching this video as I leaf through my album…just to see if I have those😊
I like these single stamps in cards!! Never saw storage like this before! But it looks amazing. Specially for the older stamps!! The story about balloon post is really great!!
When I started going to school I went to the Bazeilles-school in Munich, an old building. It was a French name but nobody was talking about it - I assume nobody knew the history behind it. Years later I saw a documentation about this small village when Bavarian troops fought against the French army in 1870 near Sedan. They took this village with high losses and this was the beginning of the battle of Sedan with the known outcome. After this the German army went on to Paris to siege the city. I looked for many years for a letter of the balloon post and two years ago I got one. I´m still trying to complete the Bordeaux set from 1870/71. I have around 50% of it, but it is difficult. Only the 20 Centimes is some sort of easy. Especially from the quality, I have several in good condition and some in poor. This will take some time, they are not cheap and seldom at all. You have some really nice and rare French stamps. and a better collection of this country. I like the stamps up to 1990, after this we see an inflation of blocks they want to sell far too exoensive. The stamps you showed in the modern part, especially in the beginning of 1976 - 82 were my beginnings when I started with France.The majority are art, it seems stamps were important for the French post, not only to get the maximum out of the few collectors like at present.
Thank you for this video on French stamps. I particularly enjoy hearing the history that you share along with you showing your stamps. I have 4 of the Alsace and Lorraine occupation stamps from 1870. I am sure that they go along with the history that you have shared about the war at that time. French stamps are beautiful and I am privileged to have inherited a massive collection of them, along with what I have purchased over the years.
Still have it... figured I'd already showed it on the channel so didn't include it on this one... (some of the finer stamps though I pulled out and put in stock cards for safe keeping). I'm debating what to do with it though, because there's a lot of owners marks and tears in it, and ultimately I want to put together my own collection. Probably in the Minkus I showed here...
I like to expand my French collection, but modern French stamps give me a headache. These days LaPoste produces TONS of self-adhesive stamp booklets and bazillions of souvenir sheets. Both are unwieldy to collect and expensive, because of sheer volume of them. E.g. lately they introduced a new habit: they take old stamp designs (e.g. from 1930-1950ties) and produce very limited number of souvenir sheets with them, printed in various colours and new euro-values. Since 1990-ties, number of philatelic items in France catalogue has quadrupled (yearly)!. Until 1990, there were TEN souvenir sheets released. In 2023, the number rose to 623 (!) SIX HUNDRED! What's going on, France?
IMO there is no wrong way to display your stamps or store them, for that matter, AS LONG AS they are protected first from damage or the elements. Now for me, as I have gotten more into purchasing mint U.S. 19th century regular issues, I need to soon catalog them and perhaps mount on album pages, purely so I can keep straight what Banknote varieties and what Washington/Franklin varieties I have. This is arguably the most difficult and time consuming part of U.S. philately so I am not too hard on myself about it as long as I have not retired yet. ;-)
I believed they changed from intaglio/gravure printing to lithography? Could be wrong. Typography is quite different than intaglio and is the same as relief printing I think.
