"Type Sage" (also referred to as "Peace and Commerce") is a reference to the

definitive Definitive may refer to: * ''Definitive'' (TV series), an American music television series * Definitive stamp, a postage stamp that is part of a regular issue of a country's stamps available for sale by the postal service See also * Definiten ...

series of postage stamps issued by the post office of

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 ...

between 1876 and 1900. Printed in a variety of colors and shades, the two central figures are allegories of Peace (left) and Commerce (right), giving rise to the name of the series. The name "Type Sage" comes from the tendency of French stamp collectors to refer to the series by the name of the designer of the artwork, in this case

Jules Auguste Sage Jules Auguste Sage (Paris, 16 March 1829 - Paris, 13 October 1908) was a French poet, artist and sculptor. He is known for giving his name to a type of French postage stamp, Type Sage, first issued in 1876. Life Sage exhibited at the Paris Sal ...

, whose name appears as "J. A. SAGE INV" along the lower left edge of the stamp beneath the word "REPUBLIQUE" of "REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE." The Type Sage / Peace and Commerce series is one of the more extensive definitive series from the late 19th century. The Scott Catalogue notes forty-four (44) different stamps in this series, ranging in face value from 1

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 5

francs 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 ...

, not counting overprints and minor varieties. Stamps of this design issued with perforations were used in France proper and were also used at French post offices abroad. No stamps specifically prepared for use overseas were created until the mid- to late-1890s, when stamps of this series were overprinted in a variety of styles prior to sale. Stamps of this design issued as

imperforate For postage stamps, separation is the means by which individual stamps are made easily detachable from each other. Methods of separation include: # perforation: cutting rows and columns of small holes # rouletting: small horizontal and vert ...

s were prepared for use in

French colonies From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over , the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. During the 19th and 20th centuri ...

which did not issue their own distinctive stamps at the time. File:Madagascar 5Fr 1896.jpg,

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

File:Peace and Commerce overprinted for use in China.jpg, French post offices in China File:FRENCHMOROCCO0001.jpg, French post offices in Morocco File:Stamp French PO Turkish 1885 1pi.jpg,

French post offices in the Ottoman Empire The French post offices in the Ottoman Empire were post offices in various cities of the Ottoman Empire run by France between 1812 and 1923. France was one of a half-dozen European countries, the others being Austria, Russia, Great Britain, Germany ...

File:Stamp French PO Port Lagos 1893 5c.jpg, French post offices in Port Lagos File:Stamp French PO Port Said 1899 4c.jpg, French post offices in Port Said File:Stamp French PO Vathy 1894 15c.jpg, French post offices in Vathy

Sources

* Scott Catalogue: various catalogues *

Yvert et Tellier Yvert et Tellier is a postage stamp dealer and a philatelic publishing company founded in 1895 in the northern French city of Amiens, where the head office is still located. The logo is a circle divided into a snowflake and a smiling sun. It is a ...

: various catalogues Postage stamps of France