The French post offices in Egypt were a system of

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

s maintained by

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

during the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century. They were primarily intended to facilitate commercial and trading interests that needed to communicate between France and points east. The post offices were located at

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

Suez Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same bou ...

and Port Said. Initially, in the pre-stamp period, letters were sent with appropriate postal markings to indicate payment and non-payment (letters traveling "bearing" in philatelic terms). In 1857, the regular postage stamps of France were distributed for use at the French Consular Post Offices in Egypt. Although letters could still be sent without postage affixed, in practice most letters were sent franked with stamps paying the required rate. The use of the generally issued stamps of France stopped in 1898 and in 1899, stamps were officially overprinted for the post offices at Alexandria and Port Said (the post offices at Suez and Cairo closed prior to this change). France issued

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

s for each of the two remaining post offices,Smith, Peter A.S. Smith, Egypt, Stamps and Postal History: A Philatelic Treatise, see chapter 10 generally at the same time and with the same general characteristics, with the one overprinted or inscribed "ALEXANDRIE" and the other "PORT-SAID". The first issue appeared in 1899; it consisted of the post office name (as described above) overprinted on the current " Type Sage" stamps, a total of 15 values ranging from one

centime Centime (from la, centesimus) is French for "cent", and is used in English as the name of the fraction currency in several Francophone countries (including Switzerland, Algeria, Belgium, Morocco and France). In France, the usage of ''centime' ...

to five

franc The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...

s. A shortage of the 25c values at Port Said necessitated surcharges on the 10c value, reading "PORT SAID / VINGT / CINQ". A few of these were additional overprinted with "25" in red ink. The first stamps inscribed for these post offices were the French designs of 1900 modified to include the post offices' names. The 15 values appeared in 1902 and 1903. In 1921 the stamps were surcharged in Egyptian currency, at the rate of about 2.5 centimes per milieme. Several forms of the surcharge exist. In Alexandria, local surcharges read "4 Mill." etc., while in Port Said they read "4 / Milliemes", with the number in a sans-serif typeface. Soon after

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

-produced surcharges arrived in both offices; they read "4 / MILLIEMES" etc. A new round of surcharges in 1925 added black bars to obscure the French currency values. In 1927 and 1928 the old designs were reprinted but with millieme values substituted, ranging from 3 m to 250 m.

References

Sources

* Stanley Gibbons Ltd: various catalogues
AskPhil – Glossary of Stamp Collecting Terms

* Rossiter, Stuart & John Flower. ''The Stamp Atlas''. London: Macdonald, 1986.

Annotations

"Mm" as shown on some stamps means milliemes. {{PostalhistoryEurope Postage stamps of France French Third Republic History of Alexandria Port Said Philately of Egypt Egypt–France relations

See also

References

Sources

Annotations