New Stamps for this Racing Season Beg The Question: Who is the Greatest?
With the Historic Monte Carlo Rally about to come to an exciting conclusion all eyes will start looking towards the Monaco Grand Prix and whether Charles Leclerc can join Louis Chiron in winning his home Grand Prix. Emulating Chiron’s achievements is not at all easy as he also won the Monte Carlo Rally.
And young Charles Leclerc has quite a few years to go before he could even think of matching Chiron’s late-career racing records. Chiron is still the oldest driver ever to have started a race in the Formula One World Championship, having taken 6th place in the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix when he was 55.
Monaco’s Stamp Office has not been slow to immerse itself in this season’s fervour by motor racing fans and bringing back memories of the likes of Louis Chiron, Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda.
A stamp featuring the Franco-Monegasque racing driver Louis Chiron will soon be available for sale. The Monaco Stamp Office will in fact release three new stamps on March 11th, related to the automotive history of the Principality.
40,000 pairs (83×31 mm horizontal) of a Louis Chiron stamp designed by Michel Verrando will be printed with a value of 3 euros (reportedly in two parts of 1 euro and 2 euros).
Born in Monaco in 1899, where he passed away in 1979 at the age of 80, Louis Chiron has an unmatched series of achievements in motor racing to his name. Many of them were in Bugattis where he scored 18 victories. He is the sole Monégasque to have won his native (Monaco) Grand Prix which he did in 1931. Over 20 years later he added the Monte Carlo Rally to his winning trophies ! And Chiron’s name is forever linked to Bugatti including its latest supercar.
Two other stamps, each printed in 40,000 copies, will also be released on the market on March 11.
The first, valued at 1.29 euros, will feature the Tyrrell 003 which participated twice in the World Championship in the early 1970s with racing legend Jackie Stewart winning in Monaco.
The third stamp, with a face value of 1.96 euros, highlights the Ferrari 312 T2 that led the Prancing Horse stable to win the World Championship in 1976 and 1977. It was in piloting this Ferrari that Niki Lauda suffered severe burns following an accident.
Every time the Monaco Stamp Office releases new stamps reminds us kindly of Prince Rainier III who himself was a renowned philatelist and who founded the Musée des Timbres et des Monnaies de Monaco in 1950.
