France
The album series La France Héraldique has a complicated history. Initially the series were intended to be issued as loose sheets, to be bound in albums per region. Therefore initially the album sheets with the arms and description of the region were issued. This was to be followed by one sheet with the nine most important cities of each province (département) within the region. However, this was not completed as such, only a limited number of provinces was actually published.. Finally per province all municipal arms were to be published. However, this scheme was never completed. There were 40 different albums planned, but only 6 were issued.
The first two albums were issued both as loose sheets as well as bound. In the first album only some provinces were displayed, but all the regional arms were included. Albums II-IV included the arms of the other regions and their provinces. Albums V and VI show all the municipal arms of the Alsace region, the first region in the alphabet.
The result of the change from loose sheets to albums is that the regional pages are duplicated, as are the arms of the principal cities in the two provinces of the Alsace Region (Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin). Of the 1363 images, 62 are duplicated.
The official number of images was 1363, but including variations around 2000 stamps are known.
For the content of the albums see here.
Read more about this topic: Coffee Hag Albums
Famous quotes containing the word france:
“It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world—and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish—she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)