Koffie Hag Belgium: Difference between revisions

Until the early 20th century the official language in Belgium was French, also in the Dutch speaking parts. In the early 20th century Dutch became more and more accepted and many Dutch speaking communities started to use Dutch as the official language. Unfortunately many towns at the time had no official Dutch spelling of the name. Only by law of June 21, 1929 the official names for the Dutch municipalities were published. As most of the stamps were already printed in 1928, many names on the stamps differed from the official names published. In the albums this was sometimes corrected, but most stamps were corrected during the second edition. The problems with the names is described (in both languages) in a small texts after the introduction to heraldry. In the albums sometimes up to 4 different names were used for the same town.  

In the French part there are only a few spelling errors that were corrected in the second edition. Malmédy and Péronnes were initially published with an 'e' instead of an 'é', Chimay was published as Chimai and Charneux was published as Charmeux. Also, the first 16 stamps of the province of Liège show the name of the province as Liège, the second half shows the name as Liége. The second edition of the stamps only shows Liége.