Booklet of 8 stamps - French Inventions - Green Letter

The theme of this year's carnets de collection is French inventions. Eight stamps for a choice of 8 inventions from among the hundreds listed in France. Whether they were precursors, pioneers or patented inventors, these French geniuses have made it possible for everyone today to have access to technologies or objects that have become commonplace. - The calculator: at the age of 18, budding genius Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) invented the pascaline, an arithmetic machine for adding and subtracting two numbers. This was the forerunner of the calculator. - The hot-air balloon: Pilâtre de Rozier first took to the skies in 1783. However, he owes his fame to the inventor duo, two brothers, Joseph-Michel (1740-1810) and Jacques Etienne (1745-1799), who, the previous year, produced the first balloon to make a vertical ascent, before successfully completing the first free flight the same year. - The folding umbrella: If umbrellas already existed in China in the first century AD, by the end of the 18th century, when it rained, men went out wearing wide-brimmed hats, while ladies stayed at home. Louis XIV, impressed by the invention of the folding umbrella by a master stockbroker, Jean Marius, in 1810, granted him a royal privilege (the equivalent of our modern patents) guaranteeing him a monopoly on the production of his umbrella for five years. - The sewing machine: The invention of the first sewing machine by a tailor, Barthélémy Thimonnier (1793-1857), did not win him the recognition of his peers. He never made a living from his invention, but his name lives on. - Cinema: The animated film industry owes a great deal to Etienne Jules Marey (1830-1904), a physician and physiologist. As early as 1857, working on the movement patterns of humans and animals, he took a series of very brief snapshots on a single gelatinobromide-coated glass plate using his photographic rifle, creating chronophotography. - Radio: Radioconduction, the principle of electrical transmission between two points at a distance (and its subsequent works), invented by physicist Edouard Branly (1844-1940) in 1890, was the starting point for a series of inventions that would eventually lead to the invention of radio. - The soundtrack: In 1857, Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817-1879), a typographer working on shorthand, invented a system for engraving acoustic vibrations (on paper coated with lampblack), in other words, the graphic trace of a sound - recording. The man was forgotten in favor of Edison, but his voice was finally heard in 2008 by researchers at Stanford University. - The digicode: In 1970, thanks to a Popeye cartoon, Robert Carrière (1931-2007), an electronics engineer, came up with a system for locking doors using a dial. His prototype consisted of keys taken from a typewriter (10 digits and 2 letters). The digicode was born. On the cover and in the center panel, other known and hitherto unknown inventions, such as the 4-hole button invented to securely fasten clothes.

Conception Sylvie Patte et Tanguy d’ap. photos : Couverture, photos T.Besset ; timbre « la calculatrice » © Musée des arts et métiers-Cnam, Paris/ photo J-C Wetzel ; timbre « la mongolfière » © Florilegius / Aurimages ; timbre « le parapluie pliant » CC0 Paris Musées / Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris ; Timbre « la machine à coudre » © Bridgeman Images ; volet central © Bridgeman Images, Florilegius / Aurimages et T.Besset ; timbre « le cinéma » ©PVDE / Bridgeman Images ; timbre « la radio » © T.Besset : timbre « le phonautographe » © Heritage Images / Bridgeman Images ; timbre « le digicode ® » photo C.Carrière, marque enregistrée appartenant à la société CDVI.