Oldest French Catalog of Venezuelan Stamps

It happened to me again!

Several times I have published an article and soon after, while I am working on another one, I get very important information that complements the article already published.

But this time it was too much. . Yesterday I published an article about The Oldest Catalog of Venezuela stamps known to date. That is, until YESTERDAY.

Today, writing an update to my article on Tiritas de Coro a La Vela, I found another catalog almost five years older.

This is a catalogue issued inserted in a magazine with a nice name: L’Ami des Timbres, or The Friend of the Stamp in French. This was issued by an agency called Central Collector’s Agency, located in Paris, France.

The catalogue itself is called the Illustrated Catalogue of All Stamps, Second Edition and was published in parts over several months.

The section on Venezuela can be found in numbers 83 and 84, from November and December 1880. Venezuela’s stamps range from number 18108 to 18205.

In number 84 it shows the image of some stamps, including the Bejuma and a Coro a La Vela y vice versa label. It is also well deserved to mention that this is the first catalogue to show the pieces from the Province of Caracas with the legend PASAPORTE and also the Numbered Stamps. The second and last was the Forbin catalogue of 1915.

I’ll be honest with you… I think I wouldn’t mind if, tomorrow, I find another catalogue of Venezuelan stamps but published in 1875. I’ll be happy to write another review for it! After all… this catalogue is the second edition 🙂

I’ll leave this one here for now.