A little over 1 year ago I decided to move beyond my main interest - the Postal History of Tasmania, and joined the F&CPS.
Peter Kelly was kind enough to suggest some reading and this has helped considerably as I try to understand the stamps of French Colonial Africa. I now have a club-level display of a number of French Colonies and the possibility of expanding this to include the Postal History of Madagascar, Cote Francaise des Somalas, Gabon, Mauritania and others.
Alas ( for my bank account), I have also now developed an interest in classic French issues and am seeking some guidance about useful reference literature beyond the catalogues. I am interested in traditional stamp collecting and also post marks and postal markings from 1849 to early 20th century. My French is passable but I still prefer to read in English, probably a faint hope I suspect.
If anyone can suggest some useful reference publications for the classic period and beyond to around WW1 I would be very grateful. I do appreciate there may be many specialised publications and articles but any thoughts would be very welcome.
Up-date
Having undertaken some research I can see that my initial request was somewhat ill-informed. There must be hundreds of references in Journals and books about French stamps from 1849 to WW1.
what I probably need, if such exists, is some sort of over view so I can work through the issues over time and then decide where to specialise.
Peter Allan