Postal Rates
Recently, there has been a growing number of question concerning postal rates of our field of interest. Most of them come from non-members, and many of them ask for some sort of publication. The demand points to a gap forcing us to give a negative reply. In fact, there is a number of publications on this topic, sometimes containing extensive data, but usually only parts of the whole are considered. Without claiming completeness, as examples may serve:
- Klim/Schödelbauer: Československo 1918 – 1939. Specializovaný katalog známek a celistvostí, Brno 2002
- Autorenkollektiv: Specializovaná příručka pro sběratele československých známek a celin, Praha 1988
- Dušan Evinic: Poštové poplatky na Slovensku v rokoch 1939 – 1945, Filatelistické state 31, Bratislava 1990
- Miroslav Bachratý: Slovensko 1938 - 1945 (Bd. 2), Bratislava 2020
- Osthues/Sobotka/Kokta: Ganzsachen-Spezialkatalog Slowakei, 2016
Beside the fact that the available information is scattered about various publications, the given list discloses that the majority of collectors is confronted with a language barrier. That's why I'd like to initiate a research group Postal Rates, which
- attends to the issue,
- collects and checks the available data and, if necessary, corrects and completes them,
- releases a comprehensive "Handbook Postal Rates of Czechoslovakia" (including the Czech Republic and Slovakia), namely multilingual (German, Czech/Slovak, English) or one edition of each language.
As example is to serve the "Michel-Postgebühren-Handbuch Deutschland" (Michel-Handbook of Postal Rates Germany). Since in part a "growing" field (Czech Republic and Slovakia) is concerned, the issue of an extendible electronic version shall be considered in a second step. We hereby invite all fellow-collectors doing research or owning source material on the topic to contribute to this goal with their knowledge and their findings. If you are interested in collaboration, please contact the coordinator of the group, Stefan Tischner (contributions in English welcome).