You’ve Got Baguette-Scented Mail
Post offices in France are issuing scratch-and-sniff stamps that can be ordered online, or picked up, to mail international letters.
Photo courtesy of La Poste Groupe
Is there anything more quintessentially French than a fresh-baked baguette? (Runners-up: croissants, macarons, madeleines, tarts.)
And so it makes perfect sense that France would unveil a new stamp featuring an image of the baguette. More exciting still? The stamp is scratch-and-sniff, made with a special ink containing “microcapsules” containing a “bakery scent” that is released when someone rubs the stamp, according to BBC.
The stamps were issued on Friday, May 17 and designed by Paris-based illustrator Stephane Humbert-Basset, with a print run of 594,000. The stamp features a drawing of a baguette tied with a red, white and blue ribbon — the colors of the French flag. Each stamp also includes the words, “La baguette de pain française,” which translates to “the French bread loaf.”
Photo courtesy of La Poste Groupe
Priced at 1.96 Euros per stamp, and sold individually and in sheets of 15, the stamps can be purchased at post offices and shops in France as well as online from La Poste, France’s largest postal-services provider. (Yes, they ship overseas.) The baguette stamp does not appear to be part of La Poste’s Paris Olympics collection.
The stamps can be used to mail international letters destined for either inside and outside the European Union, with a maximum weight of 20 grams.
In a description on La Poste attributed to Dominique Anract, president of the National Confederation of French Bakery and Pastry, the baguette is hailed as the “bread of our daily life, symbol of our gastronomy, jewel of our culture.”
Having earned UNESCO “intangible cultural heritage” status in 2022, La Poste boasts, the French baguette “transcends borders to become an international icon.”
Now, it’s an international scratch-and-sniff stamp as well.
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