26 Mar 26 – Newspapers and the Austrian Post

by Andy Taylor

The display covers the procedures used by the Austrian Post Office to handle newspapers, primarily inland publications that residents subscribed for, from 1789 to 1922.

The display covers the procedures used by the Austrian Post Office to handle newspapers, primarily inland publications that residents subscribed for. Both the tax and the postal aspects are covered, in the period 1789 (first imposition of tax) to 1922 (withdrawal of special newspaper postage stamps). The area of concern is the Austrian Empire; Lombardy and Venetia are included but different arrangements in Hungary are not. As well as adhesive stamps and impressed signets, attention will be paid to the constant torrent of laws and regulations that controlled the process. 

The complex 111-year history of taxes on newspapers in Austria is closely tied to the political events of the 18^th & 19^th centuries in Austria and the rest of Europe. Empress Maria Theresia died on 29 November 1780, and her son Josef II hastened to introduce all manner of reforms, but was continually frustrated by the “Law of Unintended Consequences” and ultimately by his death in 1790. Josef announced a tax on all newspapers and pamphlets, whether published in Austria or imported from abroad; the official justification was “to raise funds for education”. With a break from 1792 to 1803, newspaper tax continued till 1 January 1900.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was the first country in the world to use special adhesive stamps for the inland postage of newspapers. Regulations permitting registered publishers to buy discounted-rate postage stamps for officially-registered newspapers, magazines, etc. were announced on 12 September 1850 and introduced on 1 January 1851. They were finally replaced by payment-in-cash on 1 March 1922. An estimated ten thousand million newspaper stamps were printed in that period. The well-known and much-forged “Red Mercury” was introduced in 1856, to pay the special-rate postage on a bundle of 10 copies. They were sold to publishers only in sheets of 100 costing 10 Gulden (equivalent to 200 Euro today), paid in advance in cash. This specimen although genuine has no gum and probably “escaped” from official files.