This week-end, take place a first day issue in Paris and four towns in the four overseas départements. Are released four stamps and an illustrated sheet in the annual series Nature of France. Four endangered species are depicted :

(image from the L'Actu timbrée site of La Poste)

As usual, for this soon-to-be 50 year series, the stamps can be use for the major postal tarriffs : 0,54 € for the less than 20 gramms letter in France, 0,60 € for the same weight in the European Union, and 0,86 € for the 20-50 g in France (1 cent more than the simple letter worldwide). But, no economic stamp (0,49 €).

While it was often in the recent years that the economic stamp of the Nature of France series that helped this series to be one of the French philatelic best sellers.

In 2001, spectacular example with the animals of the woods : 43,1 millions of squirrels (3 francs) were released into collections and mails (9 to 12 millions is a good score in France). Better, for a 4,50 francs stamp : the stoat whose eyes seemed to be right into the eyes of the readers was sold at 14,9 millions of units, third best sell for an individual stamps in 2001.

Even if the 2006 series 2006 received the Prix citron at the last Salon philatélique d'automne, I will continue to follow this annual series, that gives fresh air, in contradiction to some French commemorative stamps graphicly less-(ill- ?) inspired.

Notes :
1. The numbers of sold stamps are regularly announced by Phil@poste, published by the French philatelic magazines, Timbres magazine et l'Écho de la timbrologie, and finally are printed into the Dallay catalogue (recently described on this blog).
2. If some readers, out of France, send me mail, the first three answers will be franked with one raccon of the 2007 Nature of France series.