First postage stamp
First postage stamp was issued in 1840 in Great Britain; it is known under the familiar name "Penny Black" and its creator was Rowland Hill. On the first postage stamp the English Queen Victoria is represented. It was named "Penny Black" because of its black colour. Some sources mention that the stamp was on sale already on 1 May in Bath, but its obligatory use began six days later. Though, envelopes are known on which the stamp was cancelled already on 2 May. It is obvious that for such mail items the postage was paid twice: according to the old and to the new tariff system and model. It is most probably the best known stamp ever issued. The stamp with the nominal value of two pennies was put into circulation on 8 May of the same year, i.e. two days later. Totally 68,000,000 stamps were issued. British postage stamps are the only stamps without indication of state. They have a royal profile instead.
Augarten Porcelain, “Viennese Rose”, the world’s first stamp made of porcelain
Sophisticated design and timeless beauty: that’s what world-famous Augarten Porcelain is all about, with a tradition going back almost 300 years. Augarten Porcelain is now available in the form of the first stamp ever made of porcelain. This innovative stamp in the Austrian “Classic Brands” series features the “Viennese Rose”.
A Brief History of Timelessness
In 1718, Claudius Innocentius du Paquier completed a risky mission to bring the closely guarded secret of how to make porcelain to Vienna. In recognition of his achievements, Emperor Karl VI granted him the special privilege of being Vienna’s sole porcelain producer. This is how Europe’s second porcelain manufactory (the first one was in Meissen) came to be founded in Vienna in the street which is today known as “Porzellangasse”.
Postman - Nobel Prize Winner
Charles Bukowski, American postmodernist writer, can most probably boast with the longest years of service at the post office. He worked for eleven years at the Post Office in Los Angeles, first as a carrier, and then in the sorting centre. Later on, he dedicated himself to writing literature and his work at the post office inspired his first novel “Post Office“ which depicts many scenes from his personal life. One of the world’s greatest modernist writers, the Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner was in the years of his youth also the only employee at the post office at the Mississippi University and most probably one of the worst post employees ever. When the postal inspector saw his work he sent him a letter with the following content: "You have so often thrown mail items into waste-paper-basket at the entrance to the post office, that it was precisely the place where the users were looking for the periodicals which should have been put into their P.O. Boxes. You open and close mail at your convenience, and people say you play golf at the time when you should be in the office. You brought to a publisher a book which you wrote in your office during office hours." The book was published two years later under the title "The Sound and the Fury" and is today considered probably one of the major works of world literature.
The most distinguished historical personality who can be added to this list is certainly Benjamin Franklin. Apart from being a politician, writer, altruist and scientist, he also founded the first "version“ of the American Post. The work at post office inspired his scientific work or more precisely his interest in sailing the North Atlantic. On one occasion, when he visited England, he heard about an interesting problem. Actually, the ships that were transporting mail from England to New York took two weeks more in reaching their destination than other merchant vessels. A cousin, the captain of a whaler, told him that these ships, in contrast to other ships, did not avoid a particular sea current which slowed them down. In cooperation with experienced seamen, Franklin made the map of that current and gave it the name under which it is known to us today - the Gulf Stream. As far as visual arts are concerned, we do not have to look far. Our celebrated naive artist Ivan Lacković -Croata worked for eleven years as postman and post office employee in Zagreb.
