Awards celebrate France’s best stamps of 2023

By Dingguo Dai

The best French stamps of 2023 were announced at the 33rd Stamp of the Year awards ceremony on May 30 at the La Poste group headquarters in Paris. The results included one special award from the jury and eight awards from the public selection.

The voting period was Jan. 8 to March 31.

The 30th poll in 2021 received 112,024 votes; 2022 saw 104,095 votes; 2023 brought 109,767 votes; and this year there were about 85,000 votes. The number of votes each year reflects the enthusiasm of the French public for philately.

JUDGES’ SPECIAL AWARD

The special jury prize is awarded only to intaglio stamp engravers. It is the first and most prestigious award presented at the awards ceremony. The jury includes artists, philatelists, journalists and other experts.

This year’s special jury prize went to Sarah Bougault, engraver of the Emmanuel Bell souvenir sheet (Scott 6414), the fourth sheet of the Treasures of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral series, shown in Figure 1.

Bougault designed and engraved the Treasures of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral souvenir sheet from 2020 to 2024, doing one per year.

The 2003 sheet, issued April 15, the fourth anniversary of the fire at Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, shows the Emmanuel bell. Cast in 1686, it was the largest bell in France before 1891, with a diameter of 8½ feet and a weight of 13 tons. The bell hammer alone weighs 1,100 pounds.

During the French Revolution, about 80 percent of the country’s church bells were melted, totaling 100,000 bells. The five bells of Notre Dame Cathedral were also melted and cast into cannons between 1791 and 1792, with only the Emmanuel bell surviving, becoming the only early bell preserved in the cathedral.

The second-place winner of the special prize was a stamp (Scott 6406) issued March 17 to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of the famous French mime actor Marcel Marceau (1923-2007). The engraver was Pierre Bara.

Engraved by Elsa Catelin, the stamp issued November 8 to mark the 80th anniversary of the death of Rene Mouchotte (1914-1943), a World War II pilot of the French Air Force who was shot down and killed, won third place.

AWARDS FROM PUBLIC VOTING

In the Linn’s U.S. Stamp Popularity Poll, voting is divided into the best and worst designs and most and least necessary, but the eight awards chosen by the public in France are quite different. Some awards are not commonly found in voting in other countries, such as the best souvenir sheets, booklets, postage machine labels, partner stamps, tourist stamps and first-day postmarks.

I will introduce these awards one by one in the order in which they were presented at the awards ceremony.

Best partner stamp award. This is a unique item among French awards. It does not refer to stamps issued jointly with other countries, but to stamps designed and printed by La Poste for its overseas departments or territories.

Among the six stamps considered for the award, the 2023 French Saint-Pierre and Miquelon stamp (Scott 1131) issued Feb. 11, showing the four-masted sailing ship Zazpiakbat, shown in Figure 2, won first prize.

Best first-day postmark award. With 65 first-day postmarks up for this award, the top first-day postmark was for La Poste’s 2023 Europa stamp (Scott 6416) with the theme of “Peace – the highest value of humanity” issued May 9. The first-day cancellation was designed by Segolene Derudder.

Best collector’s stamp award. France has a type of personalized stamp called a collector’s stamp. Each set consists of four or more self-adhesive stamps, printed in limited quantities and sold above face value. The small gray squares on the side of the stamps indicate that they are personalized stamps.

A stamp commemorating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the French Air Force Patrol Aerobatic Team, issued March 23, was selected as the best personalized stamp, shown in Figure 3. Such awards are rare in other countries.

To read about the rest of the awards for France’s best 2023 stamps, subscribe to Linn’s Stamp News.

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