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Looking back into the future
An impressive age: the Swiss Postal Stationery Collectors Society (SGSSV) is 100 years old. This is being celebrated with GABRA VII and a historic postal card that looks to the future.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with postal stationery, let’s start at the beginning: postal stationery refers to stationery (postal cards, pre franked postcards and envelopes) with ready printed stamps. It was already around at the end of the 18th century: during the Helvetic Republic, Swiss Post used receipts with an embossed declaration of value. However, after the founding of the Swiss Confederation in 1848, it took Swiss Post almost 20 years to print its first postal stationery items, which are now known as “Tübli letters”.
No cutting corners
With the increasing diversity of traditional stamps, interest also grew among collectors. Publishers produced pre printed albums featuring glued in soaked off stamps and cut outs. It only became apparent in the 20th century that such cut outs destroyed the postal documents. Collectors, who from that point on only collected “intact” postal stationery, banded together to form associations. The first Swiss association was founded in 1910, but disbanded after World War I broke out.
In 1926, the Swiss Postal Stationery Collectors Society (SGSSV) was founded in Lucerne. To this day, it nurtures interest in these special postal documents and regularly hosts exhibitions, such as the 7th postal stationery and picture postcard exhibition (GABRA VII) in Burgdorf to mark its 100th anniversary.
Postal card to mark the anniversary
In its anniversary year, SGSSV is not only looking back at its history, but also towards the future. A historic postal card serves as a symbol of this. The front depicts a 1910 vision of the future for Burgdorf’s Metzgergasse. The printed stamp on the back shows a modern reinterpretation of the design a future vision of the future vision.
