Théodore Champion

Théodore Champion (r.) With Henri Henneberg (1898) in front of Paris – Roubaix 1898

Théodore Champion (born February 14, 1873 in Geneva , † August 31, 1954 in Chêne-Bougeries ) was a Swiss cyclist and later a French stamp dealer .

Cycling career

Théodore Champion was one of the first generation of Swiss cyclists. Four times - in 1892, 1893, 1895 and 1896 - he was Swiss sprint champion . In 1895 he was also runner-up in the Swiss road racing championship .

philately

Yvert Tellier Champion catalog from 1932

Champion's mother was an avid stamp collector and her children emulated her early on. After Théodore Champion, who in the meantime already had a considerable collection of stamps of his own, had ended his cycling career in 1899, he moved to Paris. There he initially worked for the stamp dealer Alfred Forbin , whose stamp dealership he acquired after two years and which still exists today under the name Ancienne Maison Théodore Champion . He advanced to become the most important stamp dealer in Paris, co- edited the Yvert Tellier Champion catalog for stamps , which is still published today , and was one of the founders of the Paris Postal Museum, to which he donated valuable items from his collection. He achieved particular fame in 1920 when he bought a red and a blue Mauritius at the Gilbert auction on May 19 for the then record price of 116,912 francs . The Blue Mauritius had the Moens No. XII and the Red Moens No. XI.

In 1923, Champion took French citizenship; In 1948 he was accepted into the "Académie de philatélie". He was married twice and is buried in the Montmartre cemetery . Théodore Champion himself is immortalized on stamps from several countries, such as one from Liechtenstein in 1969 ( Michel no . 513).

literature

• Wolfgang Maassen : Who is who in philately? , Volume 1, A – D, Phil Creativ, Schwalmtal, 3rd edition, 2011, ISBN 978-3-932198-92-2 , pp. 227-228

Web links

Commons : Théodore Champion  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Théodore Champion in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Website of the Ancienne Maison Théodore Champion

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Wolfgang Maassen (Ed.): Who is who in philately? A lexicon of well-known philatelists of the 19th and 20th centuries Century. Phil * Creativ GmbH, Schwalmtal 1999, ISBN 3-932198-32-8 , p. 33
2. ↑ Wolfgang Maaßen: Milestones of the Philatelic Literature of the 19th Century - German Translation, Index and Corrigenda / Addenda to the book "Les Jalons de la Littérature Philatelique au XIXe Siècle" / "Milestones of The Philatelic Literature of The 19th Century" Phil * Creativ GmbH , Schwalmtal 2014, p. 160. ISBN 978-3-932198-23-6
3. ↑ phila-lexikon.de
4. ↑ Historique du Musée de La Poste on ladressemuseedelaposte.com  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (French)  
5. ↑ helenmorgan.net
6. ↑ stampsmauritius.com
7. ↑ ^{a b} Jan Billion, David Feldman, Andreas Hahn: The biographies of all Mauritius post office stamps. In: Lieselotte Kugler, Andreas Hahn (Ed.): The blue Mauritius. The meeting of the queens in Berlin. A publication by the Museum Foundation Post and Telecommunications. Exhibition catalog in German and English, 2011, ISBN 978-3-9813202-1-3 , pp. 194–233
8. ^ Théodore Champion in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 15, 2017.