What is CEPT?

Since I got this question several times from different collectors I here some explanations. The abreviaton is from the french word

Conférence Européenne des Administrations des Postes et des Télécommunications

I´m really happy not being forced to spell out this sentence every time I  speak of these stamps. The first stamps were issued in 1956 in only a few countries; Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. What attracted me at that time was the fact that  stamps from those countries, and later on also other european countries, all showed the same theme. The theme was changed every year and the number of countries participating was ever increasing. This made it exciting and worth wile to collect. The idea of common themes went on till 1973. I do not know why this common idea was abandoned since it originally must have been  a sign of european unity. The themes during these years are shown below

Europa CEPT – annual themes

1974 sclptures

1975 paintings

1976 art - handicraft

1977 landscapes

1078 buildings

1979 postal history

1980 personalities

1981 traditions

1982 historical events

1983 famous works

1984 European conferance

1985 music year

1986 environment

1987 architecture

1988 communication

1989 children´s play

1990 postal facilities

1991 space travel

1992 discovery of America

1993 contemporary art

1994 discoveries

1995 peace and freedom

1996 famous women

1997 fables and legends

1998 national holydays

1999 nature and national parks

2000 startower

2001 lifegiving water

2002 circus

2003 poster art

2004 vacation

2005 gastronomy

2006 integration

2007 scout movement

2008 writing letters

2009 astronomy

2010 childen´s books

2011 forest

2012 visit ….

2013 postal vehicles

2014 music instruments

Now the pictures were all different and I lost interest in collecting them untill my retirement when I took up this collection again. In order to determine which stamps are Europa-cept you have to look for one or other logotype:

If you start collecting Europa-cept  you will have a life-long occupation.Not only you will have difficulties  obtaining all  existing stamps, there also will be a couple of hundred new stamps which are issued every year. Also from new member-states. Below you find a list from which countries you can expect CEPT-stamps

Nevertheless CEPT.stamps continued to come every year but each country now was free to design their own stamps around a given commen theme. See list  below