On his mother’s side, he was descended from a noble French family, and Count Emerie de St. Dalmas was his maternal grandfather, whose eldest son converted to the Protestant Christian faith, and was consequently prevented by the law of those times from inheriting his father’s title and estates.
Mr. ZIP appeared on the selvage (non-postally valid areas) of stamp panes (more commonly called "sheets") for many stamp issues, beginning with the 5 cent Sam Houston stamp issued January 10, 1964, although the 5¢ Battle of the Wilderness stamp of May 5, 1964, is sometimes listed as the "first" because it appears earlier in most stamp catalogs due to its inclusion in a five-issue Civil War series.