Jeu Philatélique – Les Colonies Françaises

Published January 25, 2025 Updated January 27, 2025

Philatelic card game featuring real postage stamps from the French colonies.

1945 France Draeger Frères Miro Company Philately Happy Families

For a philatelist and card collector such as myself, this is the ultimate collector’s piece – a card game with a real postage stamp affixed to each card! The game is of the Happy Families type, with 8 sets of 6 cards, each set representing one of the French colonies from the 1940s – Algeria, Cameroon, Dahomey, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritania and Réunion. Just five different unicoloured backgrounds have been used to set the scene – quite a simple printing job. To each of these a mint postage stamp has been affixed, above or beneath which is a list of all the stamps in each family. The last of the low-value stamps was issued in 1941 but, with inflation during the Second World War, these were almost worthless only a few years later. Thus, it would have cost next to nothing to buy the stamps for use in this game. Still, someone had to stick them onto the cards! Camel, crocodile and elephant motifs adorn the reverse in orange, grey-blue and black. The cards themselves are quite flimsy • See the box

Jeu Philatélique – Les Colonies Françaises printed by Draeger Frères for Miro Company, Paris, France, c1945 Jeu Philatélique – Les Colonies Françaises printed by Draeger Frères for Miro Company, Paris, France, c1945
Jeu Philatélique – Les Colonies Françaises printed by Draeger Frères for Miro Company, Paris, France, c1945
Jeu Philatélique – Les Colonies Françaises printed by Draeger Frères for Miro Company, Paris, France, c1945

Above: “Jeu Philatélique – Les Colonies Françaises” printed by Draeger Frères for Miro Company, Paris, France, c1945. 48 cards + rules in French, in tuck box. Size: 70 x 105 mm.

See the rules

Miro Company was founded in Paris in 1936. The company had links with Parker Brothers and Waddingtons, publishing and selling French editions of Monopoly and Lexicon.

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By Roddy Somerville

Member since May 31, 2022

Roddy started collecting stamps on his 8th birthday. In 1977 he joined the newly formed playing-card department at Stanley Gibbons in London before setting up his own business in Edinburgh four years later. His collecting interests include playing cards, postcards, stamps (especially playing cards on stamps) and sugar wrappers. He is a Past President of the Scottish Philatelic Society, a former Chairman of the IPCS, a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards and Curator of the WCMPC’s collection of playing cards. He lives near Toulouse in France.

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