NEW STAMPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 August 1942, Page 4

NEW STAMPS

FOR FREE FRENCH COLONIES.

SELECTION OF APPROPRIATE EMBLEMS.

The latest job which has come to a London printing firm is the production of a series of new stamps for the Free French colonies. Only a few weeks after General de Gaulle's troops landed on the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon, near Newfoundland, these printers were at work on the colony’s new stamp, the most recent of the series.

Designed by Edmund Dulac, famous illustrator of French and English books who was also responsible for Britain’s Coronation stamp, there are separate issues in 14 different colours for each colony. All of them embody the traditional “R.F.” and the Cross of Lorraine, emblem of Free France, as well as the words “France Libre,” but there the similarity ends. The Cameroons stamp bears a shield similar to those of thick leather borne by the native huntsmen of the Mandate; French Equatorial Africa’s stamps depict the Phoenix, symbol of France’s rebirth; while that of the French Establishments in India features the lotus flower. For Oceania, the Tahitian tipairua, or double canoe, is an emblem of local significance, as is New Caledonia’s unique Kagu bird. The air mail stamp shows an aeroplane of such recent type that it was not even under production when the stamp was designed.

Although the British, postage stamps can be turned out at the rate of 5,760,000 an hour, each sheet of 480 stamps has to be carefully examined by hand, and every scrap of paper accounted for. Even the tiny pieces left by the perforating machine must be collected and re-pulped.