Belgium and Luxembourg
The Belgian Coffee Hag albums are unique, as they are issued in two languages, Dutch ("Wapens van het Koninkrijk België en het Groothertogdom Luxemburg")and French ("Armorial du Royaume de Belgique en du Grand Duché de Luxembourg"). The series of Switzerland and Czechoslovakia are also issued in two languages, but the albums themselves are bilingual; for Belgium two separate series in either language were issued. Each series consisted of three small albums, with loose sheets. Per sheet 9 arms were shown, with the description and some background on the back of the sheet.
The albums were printed by M. Weissenbruch NV in Brussels. The images and texts were made in the studio of Van der Laars in the Netherlands. The same studio also made the images and texts for the Dutch albums. The images were of the same size as the images of the other countries (4x5.5 cm).
The stamps are numbered by province and issued arbitrarily, not alphabetically as in most other countries. This system is identical to the Dutch albums. The albums were issued from 1931 onwards. The series were not issued completely by province, but the sheets were issued in batches consisting of parts of multiple provinces. The sheets and stamps were reprinted approximately halfway completion. This has resulted in two different editions of the series, as the second edition has a slightly different lay-out and many errors were corrected. The main texts are identical. For both languages two editions exist.
The Dutch and French texts are near-identical for the arms and descriptions. The main difference is in the (short) additional text, which was issued after the Luxembourg province pages. Unlike the albums from most other countries, the Belgian albums have no separate chapters or texts on coffee, the company or the health effects of coffee.
In addition the albums also contained a 17-page introduction to heraldry, with numerous examples from the Belgian towns. These were referred to by their numbers. The second edition has the same text, but the numbers and examples have been updated with the newer stamps. The date on both texts, however, is February 1930. The text was written by Fidèle-Gabriel, a priest who also illustrated the book on the heraldry of Belgian provinces (issued in 1919 Dutch and in 1921 in French and written by E. Gevaert).
The number of official stamps is 782, including variations 902. For the content of the albums see here
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