"French Colonies" is the name used by
philatelists to refer to the
postage stamps issued by
France for use in the parts of the
French colonial empire that did not have stamps of their own. These were in use from
1859 to
1906, and from
1943 to
1945.The first of these were small square stamps issued in 1859, depicting an
eagle and
crown in a round frame, with the inscription "COLONIES DE L'EMPIRE FRANCAISE". They were
imperforate (as were all Colonies stamps until 1881). A total of six values, 1c to 80c, appeared between 1859 and
1865.The next series appeared in
1871 and
1872, and borrowed the contemporaneous designs of France, with profiles of
Ceres and Emperor
Napoleon III. While some of the nine values can be distinguished from the French stamps by color or value, others are extremely difficult to identify.
See more at Wikipedia.org...
France had
colonial possessions, in various forms, from the beginning of the
17th century until the
1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, its
global colonial empire was the second largest in the world behind the
British Empire. At its peak, between
1919 and
1939, the second French colonial empire extended over 12,347,000 km² (4,767,000 sq. miles) of land. Including
metropolitan France, the total area of land under French
sovereignty reached
12,898,000 km² (4,980,000 sq. miles) in the 1920s and 1930s, which is 8.6% of the world's land area.
See more at Wikipedia.org...
Free Download Now!
