FOCUS ON AUSTRIA

In 1850 Austria issued her first stamps, which became classics. Plenty for the technical philatelist : design types, flaws, shades, paper types, offsets, letters of the sheet watermark, St Andrews crosses (last four spaces on the sheet),rouletted, bisects, five issues of reprints, and a fascinating array of postmarks. The next four "classic" issues offer similar possibilities; the 1867 and 1874 issue (coarse and fine Franz Joseph) provide similar possibilities; the 1870s and 1880s Numerals abound in perforation differences in small steps from 9 to 13½, and line, harrow, compound. Never cast aside an early Austrian stamp, it is almost always different in some way from an apparently similar "duplicate".

Postmarks are fascinating : the Empire pre-WWI included (at various times) Lombardy, most of the Adriatic coastline and hinterland from Bosnia, Serbia to Albania, Hungary, half of Romania, half of Poland, Czech lands, parts of Ukraine. All were connected by railways and the Post, so the array of postmarks on Austrian stamps is enormous. Then there's the Levant Post Offices too.

Vienna had always been a centre of artistic creativity. The Vienna State Printing Works supported a team of fine designers and engravers from 1908 Jubilee to modern times. Austrian stamps offer fine detail in their magnificent printing which is often missing in modern British stamp issues.

The 20th century saw the collapse of the Austrian Empire and House of Habsburg and catastrophic loss of territory, dramatic inflation, assassination of Chancellor Dollfuss in 1934, annexed by Hitler in 1938, briefly Soviet and Allied Zones in 1945, until a democratic western republic was restored in modern times. All is reflected in the stamps and postal history of the time.

We always offer a number of collections of Austria of different periods. We recently bought the estates of several retired collectors of Austria, so there is more to come over future lists. We have a solid retail stock of Austria from 1850 to 1955, along with extensive specialised material and postal history. Contact us?