Friday, July 30

50 years of Liechtenstein's 1st Europa issue !

Liechtenstein

50 years of Liechtenstein's 1st Europa issue !

9th September 1960 saw the appearance of Liechtenstein’s first Europa stamp (face value CHF 0.50). The name EUROPA was embedded in it in a honeycomb pattern. This was also the first stamp designed by the then 30-year-old Mauren graphic designer Louis Jäger, who has since been responsible for several masterly pieces of philatelic design (he draw also the 1975 Europa issue).


The publication “50 Years of Liechtenstein Postage Stamps 1912–1962” describes the stamp, a first work in two senses, thus: “In 1960 a great structure is evolving cell by cell, but it will be some time yet before it is complete: many cells are still unfilled or incompletely filled: Europe is not yet complete. It can however be finished if its builders continue building on the common foundation laid in antiquity and the Christian era: hence the letters of the alphabet modelled on Roman characters. Thus will it all be able to coalesce and jointly grow together.” (p. 313).
There were however two more unusual features which attracted collectors’ attention to Liechtenstein’s first Europa stamp. Firstly, it was published in an edition of only 322 000 and was consequently very quickly sold out (subsequently Liechtenstein’s Europa stamps have each appeared in editions of over 1.5 million). What also made this stamp a true collector’s item was the fact that there were both a second edition and a very small edition of imperforate test prints.


source: Philately Liechtenstein - News brochure, 2010, n°3

2 comments:

ashley said...

I asked a student stamp collector how many stamps he already has in his collection and answered me, about a hundred. I added if he knew of the stamp parts, as he already has a somewhat huge collection. He got interested about it and said," Please tell me what are these stamp parts". are you the same person as this kid? Fret not! I have news for you. Here's the stamp parts.

Hi there! I came across this blog and find it interesting because we have the same niche.

Great stamps! Great stories too

Anonymous said...

How much are these stamp's worth?

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