Austrian Postal Historicals: Hold A Bit Of History In Your Hand

The rise and fall of empires, prominent historical figures, pop culture icons-all have been immortalized on stamps. The history of a nation is mirrored on the face of its stamps. Therein lays the fascination for many collectors-the opportunity to hold in one's own hands a little bit of history.

County Stamp Center has just acquired a series of Austrian postal historicals, most from the 1800's and a few from WWI. The history behind these pieces makes fascinating reading.

Austria's first postage stamp issue in 1850 featured a series of imperforate typographed stamps bearing a coat of arms, according to a fascinating article on Wikipedia.com. First printed on rough, hand-made paper, the industrial revolution brought smooth machine-made paper to Austria's stamp issues in 1854. Varnish bars were added in 1899 to prevent reuse but were abandoned in 1908.

A series of large pictorial stamps were issued in 1908 to commemorate the 60-year reign of Emperor Franz Josef. The series included profiles of the emperor at various ages, Schonbrunn Palace and Hofburg in Vienna. In 1910, dates were added to the designs which were reused to celebrate the emperor's 80th Birthday Jubilee.

A 1916 series depicted Franz Josef, the Austrian crown and coat of arms. Emperor Charles I was briefly featured on stamps from 1917 to 1919 before the republic was established, which brought the issuance of new designs.

For a complete philatelic history, click on our blog post title to read the entire article on the postal history of Austria at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamps_and_postal_history_of_Austria. Visit County Stamp Center at http://stampcenter.com to view our complete offering of Austrian historicals. Many are highly affordable, even for the novice collector. Hold a bit of history in your hand.