thumb|Alfred PotiquetFrançois-Gabriel-Alfred Potiquet (4 December 1820 – 9 April 1883) was a French official who was responsible for the first stamp catalogue in the world.[1] The 1861 first edition is held by the Royal Philatelic Society London.[2]
Alfred Potiquet developed his catalogue on the basis of the postage stamp and postal stationery register of the Strasbourg bookseller, Oscar Berger-Levrault. In fact, that register is referred to as the world's first stamp catalogue, although it was not intended for the public. Potiquet added a lot of stamp issues which had been overlooked by Oscar Berger-Levrault and corrected his errors.
His work was published in December 1861 in Paris under the title, "Catalogue des timbres-poste crées dans les divers états du globe". It already contained 1080 postage stamps and 132 postal stationeries. This much improved stamp catalogue was still not error-free. For example, there was no information about stamps which were still unknown at that time, such as the "Post Office" stamps of Mauritius.
Besides these stamp catalogues of Oscar Berger-Levrault and Alfred Potiquet, there was a similar work made in parallel in England by John Edward Gray.[3]