- Zustand: unused FDC
- Issued: 2020-04-22
Annotation
Face value: a stamp identified with the letter E corresponding to the price of Ordinary Item up to 50 g – European countries in international service (current price according to the Price List of Basic Postal Services.
Theme
This year’s theme of the annual issue, common for all countries of the PostEurope organization, is Postal routes. The image of the stamp is based on a period scene, which depicts transportation of mail on a horse-drawn carriage. The designer added colours to the original drawing using the currently used spectrum of postal colours to create a symbolic link between the past and the present postal services in our territory.
The beginnings of regular exchange of messages date back to antiquity. It used to be the privilege of the monarch and his agenda and was rarely available to the public. In the Czech lands, the development of postal services began with the arrival of the Habsburgs. Regular postal services, or organised transportation of messages in today’s territory of the Czech Republic, are associated with the election of Ferdinand I as King of Bohemia; they were established even before the Habsburg king ascended to the Czech throne in 1526. Ferdinand I took advantage of the services and experience of the noble family of Taxis, who had organised postal transportation in northern Italy and a large part of Europe almost without any competition since the end of the 13th century. The oldest postal route connecting Prague and Vienna led through Tábor and further to the village of Košice, where it was divided into two branches. The southern branch led to Linz and the eastern branch led through Jindřichův Hradec and Slavonice further towards Vienna.
Theme
In the first day cover design, the designer went even further to connect the past and the present postal services by placing new types of vehicles, used by postmen today, on the same road.
Detailed information
The first day cancellation mark symbolises the world throughout which mail is transported. Mail is symbolised by the two envelopes in the cancellation mark and the text: “PRAHA, 22.4.2020”