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 letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

s maintained by

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

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 ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Suez Suez (, , , ) is a Port#Seaport, seaport city with a population of about 800,000 in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It is the capital and largest c ...

and

Port Said Port Said ( , , ) is a port city that lies in the northeast Egypt extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, straddling the west bank of the northern mouth of the Suez Canal. The city is the capital city, capital of the Port S ...

. 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). Then the stamp is affixed 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 {{Short description, Postage stamp "Type Sage" (also referred to as "Peace and Commerce") is a reference to the definitive series of postage stamps issued by the post office of France between 1876 and 1900. Printed in a variety of colors and sha ...

" stamps, a total of 15 values ranging from one

centime Centime (from ) is French language, French for "Cent (currency), 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 ...

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 century ...

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 In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...

typeface. Soon after

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

-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 The Stanley Gibbons Group plc is a company quoted on the London Stock Exchange specialising in the retailing of collectable postage stamps and similar products. The group is incorporated in London. The company is a major stamp dealer and phila ...

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 History of Port Said Philately of Egypt Egypt–France relations History of Cairo Suez

See also

References

Sources

Annotations