In June 2024, an auction was held in New York, USA, which included the sale of several Austrian-Hungarian stamps with the overprint Pošta Československá 1919. The link to my video showing these stamps can be found here: Siegel auction Posta Ceskoslovenska 1919, June 2024 by Radek Novak All of them were sold for record prices.

After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the subsequent abolition of the validity of Austrian-Hungarian stamps in Czechoslovakia on 1 March 1919, large numbers of invalid Austrian stamps remained in post offices (or were returned from the public) in Czechoslovakia. The authorities did not know what to do with them, until a certain Mr. Jaroslav Lešetický came along and suggested that these stamps be overprinted in this way. The overprinted stamps were then sold with a 50% surcharge on their original nominal price, only at the philatelic counter of the main post office in Prague. Even stamps that were no longer valid at the beginning of the year, or stamps that had been issued by the successor states (Austria, Hungary) and were therefore never valid on the territory of Czechoslovakia, were overprinted! There is also no list of how many stamps were overprinted, and it is based only on contemporary information, which is not accurate. Some overprints are quite common, others are rare because only a few were overprinted. Many purposeful errors were also made during overprinting process - reversed overprints, overprints on glue side, double overprints, etc. In summary, this issue has been problematic since its inception and there are completely conflicting opinions on its legitimacy.

Yet, these stamps are still fetching record prices today, due to the simple collector's desire to own something special that no one else has. It is therefore to be expected that the price of these stamps, i.e. those that have been overprinted in small numbers, will continue to reach record prices in the future.

#postaceskoslovenska1919 #overprint #rarity #auction