Austrian & Hungarian stamps period 28.10.1918 – 05.06.1920

Prior to the birth of Czechoslovakia, there were stamps of two states valid on its territory, namely of Austria in Bohemia and Moravia, Hungary in Slovakia. As a temporary solution after the establishment of Czechoslovakia, the act 11/1918 Sb set up the use of then valid Austrian and Hungarian stamps. In time to the first Czechoslovakian stamp, e.g. from 28^th October 1918 to 17^th December 1918 are these stamps called forerunners. The same stamps are then, until the official termination of their validity, e.g. from 18^th December to 28^th February 1919 called concurrent. Exceptionally, they were used temporarily after this date because of the lack of Czechoslovak stamps in some post offices, so the posts tolerated them until their final ban by a special regulation for stamps on 26^th July 1919.

As a proof of hectic events and not completely defined rules, various “semi-official” or completely private stamps or overprints appeared at the beginning of the existence of Czechoslovakia, mostly on the Austrian and Hungarian, but also on other (Russian) stamps. They were applied on postal consignments and submitted for postal or official transport while the post office or the authorities did not exclude them from such transport. In the literature, we call them as revolutionary or military.

Following the termination of validity of Austrian and Hungarian stamps, the remaining stock was transported to the Economic Control Centre in Prague (Hospodářska ústředna v Prahe), which then submitted them to the printer of A. Haas in Prague, where they were overprinted by an overprint “POŠTA ČESKOSLOVENSKÁ 1919”. Despite the different purposes of original stamps, overprinted stamps had to be used only as postage stamps.

For the purposes of field post in Russia were Russian stamps, respectively in Russia issued (and subsequently overprinted) stamps of Czechoslovak field post.