Oscar François George Berger-Levrault (9 May 1826 in Strasbourg – 24 September 1903 in Nancy) was a French

philatelist Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting or the study of postage; it is possi ...

. The invention of the

stamp catalogue A stamp catalog (or stamp catalogue) is a catalog of postage stamp types with descriptions and prices. The stamp catalog is an essential tool of philately and stamp collecting. Stamp catalogs are part of philatelic literature. Similar catalogs ...

is attributed to him and to the Englishman,

John Edward Gray John Edward Gray, FRS (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The same is used for ...

Life

Oscar Berger-Levrault was a bookseller in his birthplace, Strasbourg. Besides his work, he found the time to engage in philately. He was one of the first stamp collectors, who dealt with the scientific and systematic establishment of stamp collections. In the course of his philatelic work, he published a stamp and

postal stationery A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related serv ...

register ("Description of the stamps known to date") on 17 September 1861, which can definitely be referred to as the world's first stamp catalogue, although it was rather a list than a catalogue because of the complete lack of illustrations. However, it listed all of the 973 postage stamps known to the bookseller which had been issued around the world up to then. Because Berger-Levrault was the first to make such a list, errors had crept in. It was used by Alfred Potiquet as a template for the first illustrated stamp catalogue issued in December 1861. Although Berger-Levrault's philatelic work was only intended for his friends and only 40 to 50 copies of the catalogue were produced, one copy found its way into the library of the British Museum, now the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, where it can be found today.

Catalogues issued

* Berger-Levrault O
Timbres-poste.
— Strasbourg : Ve. Berger-Levrault & fils, 1861. — 12 p.
Les timbres-poste: catalogue méthodique et descriptif de tous les timbres-poste connus.
— Paris : Ve. Berger-Levrault et fils, 1867. — xiii, 147 p.

Sources

*Häger, Ullrich: ''Großes Lexikon der Philatelie'', Gütersloh et al.: Bertelsmann Lexikon 1973. (''In German'') 1826 births 1903 deaths 19th-century French businesspeople Businesspeople from Strasbourg French philatelists Fathers of philately {{France-philatelist-stub