What Can Be Done: French Colonies are one of the world’s most popular philatelic specialties and for good reason. There are over 100 issuing entities and tens of thousands of stamps. Many of the earliest issues are very hard to find, and many of the later issues are among the best designed and printed stamps there are. And French Colonies from 1900-1960 is very affordable. Many French Colonies collectors specialize further. Some only collect overseas departments such as French Southern and Antarctic Territories or St. Pierre and Miquelon. Some collect by geographic area (French Africa is the biggest and most common sub-specialty). And some collect by date, collecting either pre or post independence issues (the cutoff date here is usually 1960). The stamps of French Colonies are interesting enough, but some specialists add covers and postal history. One philatelist, who exhibited this collection at ROPEX—the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Society show that was held in Denver some thirty years ago—tried to collect one nineteenth century cover from each of the French Colony issuing agencies (he said that French Sudan was the hardest to find). Proofs, Essays, and Imperfs are easy to find, and many collectors add these interesting specialty items.
Specialty Catalogs: The Scott Classic catalog is very good for French Colonies. Because the Classic only goes to 1940, using Scott for French Colonies can be expensive as you need to buy the entire six volume catalog series to get the listings you need for post-1940 stamps. Yvert and Ceres are French catalog producers, and they put out very good one and two volume catalogs for French Colonies.
Specialty Albums: Stick to the Scott Specialty series for French Colonies. Yvert puts out a lovely, high quality hingeless specialty album. But both Yvert and Lighthouse break down their French Colony specialty albums into so many albums that the cost of these two European album producer’s product is prohibitive. Don’t be one of those philatelists who collects albums, not stamps.
Expense: There are many very rare French Colony stamps, but even so, many of the most valuable stamps don’t sell for the kind of money that they would if they were British Colonials or US or even France proper. Differing specialties, over time, have evolved their own pricing structures. Avid, not necessarily wealthy collectors, for some reason gravitated to French Colonial stamps. Unlike say early US, there are just no buyers when the value of a French Colonial stamp gets too high. The thrill of the chase and knowing that you can spend hours trying to spend $50 are part of French Colonies appeal.
Availability of Material: There are tens of thousands of different French Colony stamps, and many, except for the rarities, are always available at reasonable percentages of catalog. Be careful buying overprints as there are many forgeries. With French Colonies, buying from established, knowledgeable sources is more important than it is with most areas. A good investment plan, I think, may well be mint sets after independence of select French Africa countries. Many of these nations have been among the world’s GDP growth leaders lately. Expatriate demand (both from foreign nationals living and working in these counties and French Colony citizens living in other counties) added to internal demand may make these stamps winners. There are very few of them in collector's hands, and any push in popularity could see prices spike quickly.
Overall Collecting Grade: A+