FRENCH COMMUNITY - 409045

FRENCH COMMUNITY - While Napoleon was concentrating upon establishing France as a great European land power the same period is referred to as first colonial empire in French history. Whenever French colonial empire is mentioned within philatelic context, it is generally the second colonial empire distinctly different from Napoleonic aspirations and the reign that lasted well into the middle of the 20^th century and subsequent decolonization. At its peak in the 1930s over 100 million people lived under The Tricolor and this collection of well over 4,000 different mostly mint issues covering the entire globe from the geographic point of view is very good representation of scope and complexity of the second French colonial empire, even though it was a republic at its height. Just at a quick glance this collection is organized in some 14 volumes on Scott identified pages and includes stamps from Senegal, Lebanon, Chad, Gabon, French Sudan, French West Africa, French Guinea, French Guiana, French Equatorial Africa, Offices in China, Turkey, Egypt, French India, French Morocco, Martinique, Madagascar, Mali, Togo, Tunisia – all combining 19^th century issues, mostly focused on the first half of the 20^th century, and then going well into the 1990s or even early 21^st century. This is a vast and very diverse collection that is sure to excite Francophiles amongst the collectors and once organized into a set of dedicated quality albums would produce very attractive representation of overseas French domain, gen. VERY FINE, mint og, many NH (We scanned only a pair of volumes, which are representataive of the remainder of the lot)