Austria, 1850
A double-headed eagle coat of arms under a heavy black postmark.
Illustration of a historical stamp for learning, shown at screen size. Not valid for postage.
How to read it
KK POST-STEMPEL and kreuzer: imperial Austria.
- 1KK POST-STEMPEL
- 23 KREUZER
- Inscription
- KK POST-STEMPEL · 3 KREUZER
- Meaning
- KK stands for kaiserlich-königlich, “imperial-royal”: the Austrian emperor’s post. No country name.
- Issued by
- Austrian Empire
- Today
- Austria
- Year
- 1850. Issued 1 June 1850.
One fact
Austria’s first stamps, issued on 1 June 1850, showed the coat of arms under the words KK Post-Stempel.
Source and public-domain rule
Creators died more than 70 years ago. Published 1850 without a named designer: anonymous, 70 years from publication. Copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years, counted from 1 January of the year after death. Every named designer and engraver of the stamp died before 1 January 1956; any contributor who was never named counts as anonymous, whose term is 70 years from publication, and the stamp was published before 1956. Legal sources: Directive 2006/116/EC, Art. 1(1) life + 70 years; Art. 1(3) anonymous works 70 years from publication; Art. 7(1) comparison of terms for works from outside the EU; Art. 8 terms run from 1 January, Switzerland, Norway.
Scan: Stamp Austria 1850 3kr.jpg on Wikimedia Commons (revision 1190398352), licence templates {{PD-old-100}}. Downloaded 2026-10-19, sha256 71973ce78e32…; cropped and cleaned for this site. Facts checked 2026-10-19 against source 1 and source 2. Research record, not legal advice; a human rights review is pending. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
