The first country to put a composer on its stamps was Austria. Given its musical heritage, that is probably not surprising. In April 1922 the new Republic of Austria released a set of stamps featuring seven of its greatest composers: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Strauss Jnr and Wolf. It makes great sense that Austria would celebrate its extraordinarily rich musical heritage. Vienna bears the nickname of the “City of Music.” Some of the greatest composers in all of western music made their home in Austria
The Stamps
The Austrian 1922 stamp series features seven composers: Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Anton Bruckner, Johann Strauss Jr., and Hugo Wolf. These seven composers represent classical music stretching from the mid-eighteenth century to the twentieth century (Wolf lived until 1903). The first four stamps feature images from historic portraits, the last three are reproductions of photographs. The series was designed by Rudolf Junk (1880-1943), and produced by the master engraver Ferdinand Schirnböck (1859-1930)
One last interesting fact about these stamps is that they were charity stamps. Only 500,000 sets were made (at a time when stamps were often made in the tens of millions). They were sold for ten times their postage value, with the profits being used to fund needy musicians. A very noble idea!
They were produced in print runs of around 500,000 and only available for a month. This may seem a quite large number, but this was in an era when the more common stamps were produced in tens of millions. Nonetheless, the set is not especially valuable: Stanley Gibbons gives a price of £34 for a mint set, and £70 for a used one – clearly they found their way into collector’s albums more frequently than onto letters.
These stamps are known as charity stamps, where the normal postage cost was augmented by an extra charge used to raise money for various causes. This was common in a number of countries, such as France, Germany, Finland, Switzerland and New Zealand. These particular stamps were sold for ten times the value shown, the funds raised used for supporting needy musicians. What makes them unusual philatelically is that the charity amount is not shown on the stamp, only the amount of postage. For example, the Haydn sold for 25 kronen, 2½ of which was the postage, the balance for the charity. You will see the more usual approach, where both postage and charity charges are shown, in future issues of this series.
Joseph Haydn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ludwig van Beethoven
Franz Schubert
Anton Bruckner
Johann Strauss Jr.
Hugo Wolf
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