Meraner aid mail

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The Merano Hilfspost was the end of 1918 a privately organized postal service of Merano in Vinschgau . When, at the end of the First World War, the Imperial and Royal Austrian Post in South Tyrol collapsed and the Italian post was still not functioning, Merano Aid Post carried letters, postcards and newspapers for about three weeks from November 25th. It was financed by a stamp series of the same name. The stamps retained collector value even a hundred years later.

history

background

After heavy losses on the Italian front, Austria's army accepted the conditions for the Villa Giusti armistice on November 3, 1918 . Italy demanded, among other things, the immediate evacuation of the Trentino and southern Tyrol up to a line between the Umbrail peak near the Stilfserjoch , the Reschen and the Brenner passes . Italy thus anticipated the later annexation of this area. After the armistice, thousands of Austrian soldiers fled to the north through the Adige and Eisack valleys . On November 5th, the Italian army took control of Bolzano . On the night of November 6th, a 400-man occupation force also took up residence in Merano.

While the Austrian civil administration was dissolved, Italy struggled to establish a new administration in the occupied territories almost overnight and nationwide. In the post and telegraph office in Merano there were Italian officials at all counters from November 17th. The Italian Post initially only delivered to Italy and some of the occupied territories. However, there was no direct connection to the post offices in the countryside and especially in the Vinschgau, where some of the former staff were still on duty. The railway line to the Vinschgau was also repeatedly interrupted. In the middle of November there were often notes in the Meraner Zeitung like: “ There are no trains to Vinschgau again. So we don't know how we can offer our customers the eagerly awaited 'Mer. Newspaper. "

Auxiliary post stamps of the 2nd edition, tied by an oval stamp of the merchant class. Next to it two official Austrian and one Italian stamp, canceled on November 30, 1918 in Algund .

The Merano merchants

On November 23rd, the “Committee of the Merchants” applied to the Italian military command to take control of the postal connection to the Vinschgau. The Meraner Zeitung and the competition newspaper Der Burggräfler as well as “if possible the commercial correspondence of the committee members” should be conveyed “until the regular postal service returns”. The board of the merchants was an association of Merano merchants. Before the war began, it had 468 members. For many years, the Meraner Zeitung publisher , Friedrich Wilhelm Ellmenreich (1838–1923), was the chairman of the merchants' association .

Transport and cancellations

The Italian authorities granted the application on the same day. "The royal Ital. Kommando has until further notice allowed the local merchants' committee to carry business correspondence and the local newspapers to Vinschgau. Such correspondence has to be handed in at the committee's office and a surcharge in committee stamps will be charged to cover expenses. ”The first mailings were sent on November 25th. First she received the post office Töll , after a few days the closer Lagundo , which was on the Meran-Forst tram line. From there they went to the individual post offices in Vinschgau in the normal way.

The newspapers, letters and postcards had to be franked with both an auxiliary postage stamp and official postage stamps. The newspapers were in paper ribbons on which the stamps were stuck. They were canceled by the newspaper publishers with an oval stamp, the auxiliary post stamps on letters and postcards in the office of the merchants with the same stamp. The post offices, however, only canceled the official postage stamps.

2-Heller stamp of the second edition on a newspaper ribbon, canceled in Naturns

The originator

The idea for Merano Aid Post probably came from Merano druggist Artur Ladurner (1872–1960). He was a member of the committee of the merchants and a particularly active philatelist. His specialties included counterfeit Italian stamps and the differences in the paper qualities of postage stamps. The "Ladurner dash" goes back to his name, a name known in philately for fine lines similar to watermarks that appeared in certain types of paper and were very rare.

Ladurner later described in detail in philatelic journals the creation of Merano's aid mail and the printing of the stamps. He did not mention his own role. However, his wife noted in her unpublished diary: "With the permission of the postal administration, my Artur issued a series of auxiliary postage stamps." The stamps were produced in the small Pleticha print shop in Meran-Untermais. The owner Friedrich Pleticha was Ladurner's father-in-law.

Brand graphics and printing

First edition

The Meraner Hilfspost stamps were 2, 5 and 10 Austrian Heller : the 2 Heller stamp for newspapers, the 5 Heller stamp for postcards and the 10 Heller stamp for letters. In the first edition, however, the currency was missing. It only showed the bare digits. The inscription "Auxiliary Post of the Trade Committee" ran around the outer edge. d. Kurbez. Meran ".

Merano Aid Mail, first edition

Ladurner mentioned the emergency issue of a 10 centimes stamp as a graphic template , which the Valenciennes Chamber of Commerce had printed under German occupation in 1914. Similarities can be seen.

Valenciennes emergency stamp

In this first series, the 2-Heller mark was printed on red paper, the 5-Heller mark on green and the 10-Heller mark on blue paper. It was poor quality paper - apparently leftovers from the sheets of colored paper used by children for handicrafts. At the end of the war, paper was in short supply. So that even the smallest of sheets could be used, the printer opted for a tête-bêche arrangement. In the first print run, five or six stamps were created in a row. Then the sheet was rotated 180 degrees and the next row was printed, which was then upside down.

Second edition

Since the printing forms were badly worn after a few days, a second edition was made. The denomination remained unchanged, but this edition differed significantly from the first in terms of color and graphics. The 2-Heller mark was now green, the 5-Heller mark was blue and the 10-Heller mark was red. The stamps were larger and showed the Merano city arms in the center: an eagle perched on the medieval city wall.

Proof of the 10 Heller stamp on white paper

In addition, the Heller was now specified as the currency. A few days earlier, a Heller stamp printed in Trentino had sparked such strong protests among Italian nationalists that printing had to be stopped and the remaining stock had to be burned.

Since they had never made postage stamps before, the Pleticha printing house did not have a perforation machine . In the first edition, the perforation was indicated graphically. This was also omitted in the second edition. Instead, there were dotted dividing lines between the stamps, which made it easier to cut out.

Curiosities

On the stamps of the second edition, instead of the short form “Handelsgremium”, the formally more precise, but almost twice as long “Committee of the Merchants” should be used. That was too much text for a brand. So it was shortened almost to the point of illegibility. The handset apparently made a mistake: In “Grem. d. Kfmschft. "Was missing the second F. By the time the error was discovered, some stamps with" Kfmscht. "Were already in circulation. They are very rare, a horizontal strip of three is considered unique. The series with the missing F also has a 10-Heller stamp on blue instead of red paper. Possibly a sample where the printer mixed up the pre-colored paper. Only one copy of this misprint is said to have survived.

Strip of 3 with incorrect setting

The draft of a 5-Heller stamp on purple paper is also curious. Instead of a circulating text, it only had the cryptic line G d. K. d. K. M (for: committee of the merchants' community of the Meran spa community) and an eagle that seems to be in the air instead of sitting on the city wall. It should have been a first graphical attempt.

A first graphic draft

third edition

A third edition was due to appear at the beginning of December 1918. Several hundred 10-Heller stamps on red paper had already been produced. They were small sheets in a tête-bêche arrangement with an improved print compared to the first editions. But they no longer came into circulation regularly.

End of the relief mail

From December 6th, the post offices in the occupied area had to send all letters and postcards to be censored in Bolzano. From there, the Italian post also carried them directly to the Vinschgau. The aid mail was thus obsolete for letters.

Printed newspapers, on the other hand, were spared the detour via the censorship office in Bolzano, also for reasons of time, as they were already subject to prior censorship. Therefore, they could continue to be delivered to the Vinschgau via the aid mail. On December 14, 1918, the Italian Post also took over this transport. This officially expired the Merano aid post.

Significance for philately

Brands in circulation

As Artur Ladurner reported in a philatelic magazine in 1920, "about 3,600 newspaper numbers were carried through the auxiliary mail." On a copy of the magazine that was in his collection, he corrected the number to 4,600 by hand. and the 10-Heller stamp, on the other hand, were sent "very little and mostly only by collectors". Ladurner cited the high fees as the reason. Since the official stamps had to be paid for in Italian lira and the exchange rate was unfavorable, a letter with an official stamp and an auxiliary stamp cost the equivalent of 4.50 euros.

90 years later, a trade journal wrote 840 copies of the 5 and 10 Heller stamp from the first edition, but did not name any sources. The same numbers can also be found on Europeana.eu , again without citing the source.

Collectibles

Philately experts assume that collectors in the post offices also had blank envelopes stamped with auxiliary postage stamps. Larger quantities of souvenir envelopes are also likely to have been produced and canceled with backdated postmarks after mid-December 1918.

Prices

Merano Aid Post's stamps were very popular in the first few years. In 1920 a dealer in Weimar offered an incomplete set for 1,100 marks. That was the price of 580 kg bread at the time. 100 years after it was published, Merano Aid Post could still be found in stores. In 2016, for example, the Dorotheum auction house offered three sheets of unstamped stamps at a starting price of 320 euros. Postmarked stamps including envelopes or postcards are rare.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arnold Goller: Meraner relief post . In: The postage stamp. Post and Philately in Austria 10/2018, pp. 35–37.
  2. ↑ Meraner Zeitung of November 6, 1918, p. 3.
  3. ↑ Meraner Zeitung of November 19, 1918, p. 4.
  4. ↑ Meraner Zeitung of November 18, 1918, p. 3.
  5. ^ Artur Ladurner: The auxiliary postage stamps from Meran . In: Illustrated Briefmarken-Journal Leipzig from January 24, 1920, pp. 21-22.
  6. ↑ Address book of the spa town of Meran (Meran, Obermais, Untermais, Gratsch) 1912, p. 165.
  7. ↑ Meraner Zeitung of November 27, 1918, p. 2.
  8. ↑ Phila Historica. Journal of Philatelic History and Philatelic Literature, 03/2017, p. 86.
  9. ^ Artur Ladurner: The auxiliary postage stamps from Meran . In: Illustrated Briefmarken-Journal Leipzig from January 24, 1920, pp. 21-22
  10. ↑ Artur Ladurner: Philatelic from South Tyrol . In: Illustrated Briefmarken-Journal Leipzig from April 15, 1920, pp. 133-134.
  11. ^ Arnold Goller: Meraner relief post . In: The postage stamp. Post and Philately in Austria 10/2018, pp. 35–37.
  12. ↑ Ladurner: Die Auxiliary Post Stamps , p. 22.
  13. ↑ Meraner Zeitung of December 14, 1918, p. 3.
  14. ^ Artur Ladurner: The auxiliary postage stamps from Meran , pp. 21-22
  15. ↑ Merano Aid Post. In: The Postal Gazette No. 12 / January 2008 http://www.thepostalgazette.com/issues_article.php?prog_art=187 . Retrieved October 22, 2018
  16. ↑ Postage stamps, local issue “Auxiliary Post Meran” 1918 (South Tyrol) . In: https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/2020601/contributions_16581.html . Retrieved October 22, 2018
  17. ^ Arnold Goller: Meraner relief post . In: The postage stamp. Post and Philately in Austria 10/2018, pp. 35–37.
  18. ^ Philatelic communications . Briefmarkenhaus Karl Hennig, Weimar from March 1920
  19. ^ Dorotheum auction house, auction on November 8, 2016