Oscar François George Berger-Levrault (May 9, 1826, in Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

 – September 24, 1903, in Nancy) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 philatelist. The invention of the stamp catalogue is attributed to him and to the Englishman, John Edward Gray

John Edward Gray

John Edward Gray, FRS was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray ....

.

Life

Oscar Berger-Levrault was a bookseller in his birthplace, Strasbourg. Besides his work, he found the time to engage in philately

Philately

Philately is the study of stamps and postal history and other related items. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting, which does not necessarily involve the study of stamps. It is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps...

. He was one of the first stamp collectors, who dealt with the scientific and systematic establishment of stamp collections. In the course of his philatelistic work, he published a stamp and postal stationery

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 service has been prepaid...

 register ("Description of the stamps known to date") on September 17, 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

Alfred Potiquet

Alfred Potiquet was a French official who was responsible for the first illustrated stamp catalogue in the world.Alfred Potiquet developed his catalogue on the basis of the postage stamp and postal stationery register of the Strasbourg bookseller, Oscar Berger-Levrault...

 as a template for the first illustrated stamp catalogue issued in December 1861.

Although Berger-Levrault's philatelistic work was only intended for his friends and only 40 to 50 copies of it were produced, one copy found its way into the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, 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)