Anyone who concentrates his or her collecting in a specific area eventually runs up against the problem of price. In my case, the question was whether I should accept the absence of certain parts of the French area, or waste some money. The two main gaps I had were the New Hebrides and the French Southern Antarctic Territories. During lockdown, I eventually acquired a couple of decent-sized lots of the latter. The stamps are highly philatelic in nature - there is only a small and shifting scientific and military population on the various islands, and the Adelie penguin is a reluctant correspondent. Conversely, the stamps are, for the most part, attractively designed and realised, although they become less appealing over time as a tendency to gigantism gathers pace. In terms of subject matter, the main themes are flora and fauna and science and discovery.
This first post includes stamps from the first issues - overprinted Madagascan stamps issued in 1948 and 1955 - to around 1970. You can cut the definitive issues in various ways - I've tried to use what appear to be rational combinations, rather than following the lengthy time-frames used by some catalogues. In terms of quality, some of the earlier material suffers from toning, but this is left behind fairly quickly.
Posted 10/31/2022 1:49 pm
