Digest>Archives> Jul/Aug 2015

Swiss Chocolate Lighthouse Stamps

By Timothy Harrison

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We recently came across a rare complete set of collector lighthouse stamps by Peter, Cailler, Kohler, Nestle for their Album Chocolate made and issued in 1923 – 1929. The company issued 12 different lighthouse stamps as part of a series of many different categories; of which lighthouses were just one of the those many different categories.

Francis-Louis Cailler (1796-1852) opened up his first chocolate factory in 1819 near Vevey, Switzerland. His great innovation was the development of a smooth chocolate that could be formed into bars and it soon became a worldwide sensation. He later sold the business to his son Julian and his son-in-law Daniel Peter. In 1875 Daniel Peter came up with the idea of combining the chocolate with the condensed milk produced by his neighbor Henri Nestle. The result was the world’s first milk chocolate. Later they merged their company with the operation of Charles-Amedee Kohler, who was the inventor of hazelnut chocolate, to form the firm Peter, Cailler, Kohler. Then, in the 1920s, they were entirely purchased by Nestle.

You could purchase an album from the company, and then as you collected the stamps, which came with each purchase, you could paste them into the album. It was a marketing sensation that saw wide- spread popularity. Each stamp is approximately 2¼”H x 1½”W. The stamps featured beautiful images of lighthouses from all over the world. To find a complete set that was never pasted into an album is quite rare.

This story appeared in the Jul/Aug 2015 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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