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International postage stamps

Printing processes

History of postage stamps

History of postage stamps

2,500 years of messenger services

Legend tells that the Persian King Cyrus established the first troop of mail couriers as early as 550 BC. The Babylonians, Phoenicians and Chinese also had military communication systems. However, the oldest postal document in existence dates back to the Egyptians: In 255 BC, painstaking records of the senders, recipients, nature and quantity of all mail conveyed by couriers were made in the Hibeh Papyrus.

At around the time when the Christian calendar began, Emperor Augustus created a postal organisation which spanned the entire Roman Empire. The individual stages were known as "mansio posita", or resting places, from which the word "post" is derived.

The postal network collapsed along with the demise of the Roman Empire, and messenger organisations did not re-emerge until the Middle Ages. However, these were used solely for the purpose of official contact - for example, between Hanseatic towns, tradesmen's guilds, monasteries or universities.

The end of the 15th century marked the beginning of an era of revolutions. In around 1450, Gutenberg invented letterpress printing. Two years prior to this, Franz von Taxis was ordered by the Emperor-to-be, Maximilian I, to set up a mail line across Germany. It led from Innsbruck to Mechelen, with one station every five miles.

To begin with, only official letters were conveyed, but by 1506 at the latest, private correspondence was also being exchanged. The postal network expanded rapidly, and regular messages were soon being sent to Brussels, Rome and Spain. In 1615, the Emperor elevated the Taxis family to the rank of Postmasters of the German Empire. New mail connections were continually being established - for example the Leipzig to Hamburg line in 1660. Following the creation of the German Empire in 1871, a combined imperial postal service was established, the predecessors of today's Deutsche Post.

1000 Reichsmark

Bundesdruckerei

Bundesdruckerei was founded on 6 July 1879 under the name of "Reichsdruckerei", or imperial printing house.
More than 100 years ago, the Postmaster-General, Heinrich von Stephan, found in Chancellor Prince Otto von Bismarck a willing listener to his far-sighted plans. Against fierce opposition from both the Reichstag (parliament) and the private printing industry, he merged two printing works - the Royal Privy Court Printing House of von Decker and the Royal Prussian State Printing House - and placed them under the authority of the Postmaster-General
"until further notice".

We can proudly say that the initiator of the Universal Postal Union and inventor of the postcard has also founded our company.

In their founding years, the Royal printers produced some 600 million postage stamps per annum with typical Prussian meticulousness - by hand, of course.

Today, state-of-the-art produce some 4 billion miniature works of art each year, numbered and perforated, stamps in perfect quality. Should the eagle eyes of the quality controllers chance upon some slight deviation in colour on the freshly printed sheets of stamps or even notice an irregularity in the margins, these miniature works of art go directly to the shredders - much to the chagrin of many stamp collectors. Coveted rarities though they may be, this perfectionist company leaves no scope for printing errors.

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