Governor Léonce Lagarde - 1.5 franc

Governor Léonce Lagarde - 1.5 franc

Year
1944
Face Value
1.5
Mint Value
-
Used Value
-
Print Run
-
Themes
Personalities

Catalogs References

Michel
FR-SO 264
Yvert & Tellier
FR-SO 250
Stanley Gibbons
FR-SO V160

Technical Details

Colors
Grey green
Size
26 x 40 mm
Perforation
12 x 12½
Designer
Emile Henri Feltesse
Printers
Institut de Gravure et d'Impression de Papiers-Valeurs, Paris
This regular postage issue features a fine line-engraved portrait of Gouverneur Léonce Lagarde, capturing the administrator in profile wearing an official high-collared French diplomatic tunic bearing a neck order cross decoration. The circular portrait frame is topped by a stylized triangular emblem enclosing a dromedary camel and rider, while the lower label balances an engraving of the historic Hamoudi Mosque of Djibouti City. Historically, this definitive stamp marks the foundational legacy of the first governor of the Côte Française des Somalis. Lagarde was instrumental in executing the 1896 treaty that officially transferred the administrative capital from Obock to the developing port of Djibouti, cementing France's logistical foothold along the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and initiating the construction of the critical Franco-Ethiopian Railway corridor.