FRANCE - Stanley Gibbons France;2010

Published by Stanley Gibbons. 429pp. Colour. English

Inc Monaco, Andorra, colonies, post offices abroad, booklets, miniature sheets, machine labels, philatelic documents, balloon post, major errors and varieties,;Council of Europe stamps, UNESCO stamps, design index, English/French/German/Spanish/Italian glossary

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Philatelic Exporter review, courtesy of David Rennie (August 2010):

The latest edition (see Exporter August 2006 for review of previous edition), now includes France issues to November 2009, with the Colonies more or less in line, Andorra to July 2009 (French issues) or September 2009 (Spanish issues) and Monaco to October 2009. The FSAAT issues are listed up to January 2010.

New design indexes are now provided for Monaco, (maybe they read my last review when this was suggested), FSAAT and St Pierre Miquelon, and that for France has been suitably updated. France also includes a detailed priced listing of the Philatelic Documents, and 1870-71 Balloon Posts.; Booklets are shown for all those territories who have issued them.

The Editor mentions prices and in particular some notable rises in the early French issues, which have been reviewed in depth by some acknowledged experts or specialist dealers.

A lot of varieties have been added since the last edition, and those listed on page "iii" should be closely checked. France 558a 50c Paris Exhibition carmine shade @ £15,000, and 570a 30c Mermoz in greenish yellow shade @ £11,000 for example, would both be worth finding; but there are plenty of others..

It is worth mentioning that this is the only single volume English language catalogue available for these issues. ;Not cheap, but the larger A4 full colour format is good value when amortised over say four years.;