Alfred Forbin


Alfred J. Forbin was a pioneering French stamp dealer who wrote an all-world catalogue of revenue stamps that has never been surpassed.

Stamp dealing

Forbin started as a stamp dealer in 1890 and in 1900 he opened a shop in the Rue Drouot in Paris
In 1902, Théodore Champion, his employee and the best man at his wedding, purchased the business from Forbin who afterwards concentrated on fiscal stamps. In 1905 Forbin acquired the fiscal stamp collection of Dr. Legrand.

Catalogues

Forbin's Catalogue de Timbres-Fiscaux was the most comprehensive all-world catalogue of revenue stamps produced up to that time and is still regularly referred to by revenue philatelists as no other all-world catalogue has been prepared since Forbin's third edition in 1915. Forbin also started a journal Le Bulletin Fiscaliste in order to keep the catalogue up to date.

Organised philately

Forbin was a member, from October 1904, of the Fiscal Philatelic Society and served on the committee from 1912 to 1916.

Later life

Letters in the National Archives of Australia show Forbin requesting revenue stamps from the Australian authorities over the period 1925 to 1947 and it seems likely that he would have been in contact with other governments as well.
And correspondence reproduced in The Revenue Journal, shows that Forbin was still dealing in fiscal stamps as late as August 1955. He died in 1956.

Selected publications

Forbin's catalogues served the original purpose of stamp catalogues in being retail price lists first and works of reference second. All are in the French language: