In 1949, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the first French postage stamp, a group of British philatelists set up a pioneering specialist philatelic society devoted to the study of the stamps of France and the then French Empire. From small beginnings, the France and Colonies Philatelic Society now unites over 250 collectors in Britain and overseas in the many and varied delights of the stamps and postal history of la Francophonie.
The Society provides an extensive programme of meetings in several locations, holds an annual Philatelic Weekend, publishes a well regarded and authoritative Journal and series of monographs as well as several more extensive specialist philatelic books, operates a magazine circuit, two thriving exchange packets and three postal Auctions a year. It is a friendly and informal group to which non-members are welcome to attend any of our meetings
THE SUMMER AUCTION 28 SEPTEMBER 2026
The summer catalogue is available here. There are 800 lots, items from France, the French Colonies, together with some unusual items from military hospitals, minisheets from Polynesia, and the French Zone in occupied Germany. Scans of selected lots are enclosed in the catalogue - further scans are viewable in the current catalogue. Requests for other scans may be obtained from
THE NORTHERN GROUP .
Meetings will be held as previous, at Ravenfield Parish Hall, Birch Wood Drive, Ravenfield, Rotherham S65 4PT. Regular attendees will be notified. The next meeting scheduled is for October 10, further dates are planned for April 3, 2027, and July 3 2027. All are welcome.
THE LONDON GROUP .
The London Group will next meet at the Royal Philatelic Society of London, 15 Abchurch Lane, London EC4N 7BW on 14 October. Please let Roger know if you are attending by
. JOURNAL 311
Journal 311 is due to be dispatched - look out for it in the post. Selected images are promoted above. If you are a digital subscriber and haven't received your copy please
Articles in the Journal include:
THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed to to Journal WE ARE ALWAYS IN NEED OF ARTICLES, large or small, if you have something of interest please consider sending it for inclusion in a later edition. Let us know what YOU collect. If you are concerned about privacy - we won't publish your name. Type your text in Word or plain text, add any images, scanned at 300dpi as separate jpeg attachments and email them to
The Zoom presentations of Tuesday, 28 July, will be uploaded to YouTube over the weekend.
Those that attended were captivated by the breadth of knowledge and diversification of material. Presentation one was David Huckett showing us ‘War Bonds and Improvised Hospital Trains’. This is of particular interest to postal historians especially those who collect WW1 material.
Mick Bister gave the second presentation entitled “Stamps of the 1960s”. This examined the period when arguably the foremost stamp designers and engravers worked for La Poste and we looked at how stamp production developed with the TD-3 and TD-6 presses capable of printing in three or six colours … and even more.
Contact Chris Hitchen
Zoom meetings are a convenient way by which we can meet face to face and share our interests so please join us in what is always a highly entertaining and informative occasion. Those without a webcam can of course still view the displays but will not be seen by others. If you have a display that you would like to give on Zoom or you would like to join in in any way please let Chris Hitchen know by email
All previous Zoom meetings are available to view here
Information on Zoom meetings will only be sent to those who express an interest, however the programme will be advertised on the website. Read more
Cameroun - Plating the Occupation Française du Cameroun Issue of 1916
A4, viii + 135 pages, full colour plus a searchable CD. Fully referenced.
This publication is the culmination of a 30-year study by the authors to identify and illustrate the unique characteristics for each position in the plate used to overprint Cameroun Yvert 53-66 / Scott 116-129. The authors lead the reader through their forensic analysis, utilising a 30X magnifier to directly examine the overprint on each stamp, coupled with utilising the distinctive stamp characteristics associated with each position in a full sheet of the basic Congo Français Bakalois woman stamps, which were among the stamps selected for overprinting.
The result is a detailed plating of each of the 50 overprint positions - composed of two groupings of 25 - with distinctive overprint characteristics identified throughout the study and presented on enlarged, annotated stamp images in an Appendix
Full details are listed on the Publications page
JOIN OUR PHILATELIC FORUM
Please consider using the FORUM - perhaps share your latest acquisitions or any query or comment you may have. You can join our Forum without being a member of the Society - just contact the Website Manager with your name and preferred password and you will be supplied with a username - you don't have to be a member!.
_______________________________
Please note: The information displayed in these pages is copyright. The images used are used with permission from the owners’ of the material. Permission for the use of any material within these pages must be sought from the