Early history of Norway Postages
The history of Norwegian postal service dates back to the middle of the 17th century. On October 13, 1642, King Christian IV of Denmark sent a letter to his stadtholder (viceroy) in Norway, Hannibal Sehested, which spoke of the need to develop communication between Christiania (now Oslo) and Copenhagen. The result of this was the creation on 17 January 1647 of a postal service in Norway, named Postvesenet and approved by Christian IV. At first it was a private enterprise run by Henrik Morian (Norwegian Henrik Morian). The landowners (skydskaffer) had the postal duty to deliver horses and carts. The delivery of mail was entrusted to strong, well-built peasants who were exempted from military service, but worked for free.
In 1719, the post of Norway passed from private hands to the Danish-Norwegian state, and from that moment the national postal service became a state monopoly. Local city post offices remained private. In 1758 the post office was reorganized; one of the innovations was the introduction of salaries to "postal peasants".
In 1814, the Swedish-Norwegian Union was concluded, but the independent postal administration of Norway was preserved. The capital of Norway, Christiania, became the postal center.
In 1827, in order to improve the postal service abroad and along the coast, two steamships were purchased by the Norwegian Post - "Constitutionen" and "Prinds Carl".
On October 9, 1874, Norway signed the Universal Postal Convention, then became a member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and later acceded to the UPU agreements on postal orders[de] (1885) and on the newspaper operation (1891).
In 1888, a new postal law was passed that extended the state postal monopoly to the entire country. The postal service, whose operations were limited to sending correspondence, money and parcels not exceeding 12 kg, received vehicles from entrepreneurs on the basis of contracts; for maritime communications, she used widely branched shipping lines. In 1897, the Norwegian government opened a post office in Svalbard, which was beginning to attract tourists, in Adventfjord. The management of the post, which previously belonged to the maritime ministry, was concentrated in the Ministry of the Interior, to which postal institutions were directly subordinate.
According to data on the number and activities of postal institutions, in Norway in 1894 there were:
1,789 post offices, which averaged one post office per 177.9 km² and per 1,149 inhabitants of this country;
75,918,300 postal items, including:
29,761 thousand letters,
2954 thousand open letters,
40,810 thousand prints,
220 thousand postal orders and
885 thousand parcels.
There were an average of 38 postal items per Belgian inhabitant. The excess of mail expenses over income, in terms of rubles of the Russian Empire of that time, amounted to 39,619 rubles.
In 1933, Postvesenet was renamed Postverket[de][4].
Premarching period
Homemade postal envelope sent from Christiania (1851)
In 1845, numbered octagonal postmarks were introduced. First in Christiania (the first known date is January 7, 1845), and then in other cities in Norway. Before that, the abbreviated name of the city was written on the envelopes by hand.
Issues of postage stamps
First stamps
The first stamp of Norway, featuring the national emblem, was issued on January 1, 1855. It was lithographically printed on paper with a watermark of two types (a heraldic lion with an ax and a postal horn) with a circulation of over 2 million copies. The name of the state was not specified. The author of the miniature was Nils A. H. Sarbell (Nils Andreas Harbou Zarbell). It was in circulation until April 1, 1908. There are some of its varieties and remakes.
Subsequent issues
In 1856, new postage stamps were issued - a series of two miniatures with a portrait of King Oscar I, which was supplemented by two more stamps the following year. These issues were the first to feature the name of the country, "Norge", which has since been featured on all stamps in Norway.
In 1872, stamps were issued for the first time, which depicted a crowned postal horn and indicated the denomination. This design is also used on modern stamps of Norway. The centenary of these miniatures was marked in 1972 by the issuance of two postage stamps depicting commemorative stamps and a commemorative block, the first block of Norway. On January 1, 1877, stamps with the image of a post horn were issued with a face value in a new monetary unit - the era.
In 1889, surcharge stamps were put into circulation. They were used until 1927. Later, ordinary stamps with and without a framed letter "T" were used instead of them.
Stamps of Norway of the early period...
1856: definitive mark
from the second edition
with a portrait of the king
Oscar I (Sc #14) 1872: definitive stamp
"Posthorn" (Sc #16) 1889: surcharge stamp
(Sc#J5)
Flag of Norway.svg Independence
1905: Norwegian postage stamp with a portrait of King Haakon VII (Sc #66)
1914: Norwegian commemorative stamp for the 100th anniversary of the meeting of the Storting (Sc #98)
In 1905, Norway dissolved the dynastic union with Sweden and deposed the Swedish king Oscar II. The Danish prince Charles, who took the name of Haakon VII, came to the throne. Postal miniatures with his portrait entered circulation on August 10, 1907. Since then, definitive stamps (usually higher denominations) have depicted a portrait of the king. In 1926, a new definitive stamp design was introduced - the heraldic lion with the ax of King Olaf II.
Norway's first commemorative stamps were issued in 1914. It was a three stamp series dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the meeting of the Storting, which proclaimed Norway a free, independent and indivisible country.
Since 1967, all stamps in Norway have been issued on phosphorescent paper.
First day cancellation was introduced in 1938.
In 1951, on the occasion of the philatelic exhibition "De No Fi" in Oslo, a souvenir block was issued depicting four definitive stamps of Norway. The block was sold only with an imprint of a special stamp of the exhibition. Similar blocks were produced later. All of them were not in the postal circulation.
Since December 1978, brands of printing machines sold in automatic machines have been used.
In 1996, by decision of the Norwegian parliament, the post office ceased to be a state institution, although the state still remained its sole owner. Since July 1, 2002, Norway Post has become a limited liability company.
Unusual releases
From June 1 to August 10, 1964, lottery tickets were sold in Norwegian post offices in favor of the Norwegian Refugee Fund. The lower part of this ticket could have been used as a postage stamp in 50 ør to frank domestic letters weighing up to 20 grams.
On postage stamps of Norway, as a rule, the name of the country is indicated according to the city spelling, that is, according to the book form of the Norwegian language (bokmål), - "Norge". But sometimes stamps were issued on which the village spelling was used, corresponding to the colloquial form of the language (Nynorsk), - "Noreg". This happened for the first time in 1951, when a series of three stamps with the word "Noreg" was released, which were timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of the poet and philologist Arne Garborg (Yt #332-334). This form of the name of the state is also found on some issues of Norway. So, in 1963, two stamps were issued in honor of the 150th anniversary of the birth of the poet Ivar Osen and with the same spelling of the name of the country (Yt # 458-459).
German occupation
In April 1940 Norway was occupied by Germany. The stamps depicting the king and queen were withdrawn from circulation. A puppet government headed by Vidkun Quisling was set up and issued its own postage stamps. They were in circulation until May 14, 1945.
The Norwegian government, which left the country, issued a series of stamps for use on ships in the Norwegian Navy and on the island of Svalbard. From 1 February 1945 they were used by the Norwegian post office in Stockholm. After the liberation of northern Norway by the Soviet troops, these stamps entered circulation here, and officially began to be used throughout Norway from June 22, 1945. At the same time, the series was supplemented with denominations in the 5th and 7th era.
Six stamps of this issue overprinted "London 17.5.43" (4000 series) were delivered to Norway and sold to finance the resistance movement. From May 1945 to September 1946 they were used to frank mail.
The publication of stamps in liberated Norway began on July 12, 1945. A series of three stamps was issued to commemorate the centenary of the death of the greatest Norwegian publicist writer Henrik Arnold Wergeland (1808-1845).
Other types of postage stamps
Airmail
1927: Norway's first airmail stamp (Sc #C1)
Norway's first airmail stamp was issued in 1927. It depicted a plane over the Akershus fortress in Oslo. In total, three issues of Norwegian airmail stamps were issued (1927-1934, 1937 and 1941). In the future, regular stamps were used to pay for airmail correspondence. Aerograms were introduced in 1948.
Service
Until 1925, postage stamps were perforated with the abbreviated name of the institution and were used as official stamps. This practice ended in 1933. Service stamps featuring the national emblem of Norway were first issued in 1926 and are still in use today. The name of the state is not indicated on them - only the inscription "Offentlig Sak" ("Public business"), in full or in abbreviated form, and the denomination, except for the first issue, which had the inscription "Tjeneste-frimerke" ("Service stamp"). Service marksaccepted for internal correspondence only.
Refundable
In 1872, so-called return stamps were issued, which were pasted on the postage mark of an envelope to return undeliverable mail to the sender. At first they were not extinguished, but crossed out with a pen. The stamp was placed on the envelope. Since 1881, return stamps have been canceled as normal. The latest known stamp is dated August 16, 1886.
Service stamps
1933: Service stamp of Norway (Sc #O14)
1872: return stamps of Norway (Mi #I-II)
Local mail
Main article: Local post offices in Norway
Arendal local postage stamp
Local city post offices that issued their own stamps existed in a number of cities in Norway (Bergen, Arendal and others) from 1865 to 1891.
Private releases
Svalbard
Main article: Svalbard local post offices
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were two local private post offices in Svalbard that issued their own postage stamps. From 1896 to 1913, various stamps were also issued with the inscriptions: "Spitsbergen", "Spitzbergen" or "Spidsbergen" ("Spitsbergen"), which are various charitable vignettes for the payment of voluntary contributions[6].
Bouvet Island
1934: Bouvet Island stamp
In February 1934, an Antarctic expedition arrived on Bouvet Island on the ship Milfort. On this occasion, Norwegian stamps of five denominations were hand overprinted with a black stamp of the name of the island - "Bouvet oya" in the following quantity: 5 öre - 400 pieces (of which 268 were used for postal purposes); 7 ore - 100 (69 used); 10 ore - 1000 (305 used); 20 ore - 800 (261 used); and 30 ore - 400 (243 used). Permission for this release was given by the Norwegian Consul in Cape Town (SA). The stamps were used to send postal correspondence by members of the expedition and the ship's crew. Upon the expedition's return to Cape Town, the letters were canceled with a postmark "CAPE TOWN PAQUEBOT" and sent in the usual way. However, Norway refused to recognize the overprinted stamps as official. Thus, although these stamps were used to pay for international postage, they have a semi-official status.
Stamp artists
One of the famous artists of Norwegian stamps is Sverre Morken (Sverre Morken; b. 1945), who created 10% of all Norwegian stamps produced since 1855.
see also
History of Norway
Local post offices in Norway
Local post offices in Svalbard
Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications
Norwegian Minister of Maritime and Postal Affairs[en]
Minister of Postal Affairs of Norway[en]
Norway's first stamp[no]
Post horn (Norwegian stamp)
List of people on the postage stamps of Norway[en]
List of postage stamps of Norway[no]
Posten Norge
Category:Images:Norwegian stamps
Notes
Postens historie (Norwegian) (inaccessible link). Om Posten. Posten Norge AS. Date of treatment: December 5, 2010. Archived from the original on March 5, 2011.
Mail // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907.
Fairclough S. Posthorns of plenty Archived March 4, 2016 at the Wayback Machine // Stamp Magazine. - 2004. - Vol. 70. No. 11. - P. 78-79. (English) (Accessed: March 9, 2010)
Løhre A. Postens logi (Del 1). Fra Kongens merke til internasjonal kosnsernprofil // Budstikka. — 2008. — Arg. 13. — Nr 4. (Nor.) (Accessed: December 6, 2010)
Vladinets N. I. Norway // Philately of the USSR. - 1981. - No. 11. - S. 30-31.
Norway (Kingdom of Norway) // Philatelic geography. European foreign countries / N. I. Vladinets. - M .: Radio and communication, 1981. - 160 p. (Accessed: October 5, 2010)
According to information from the Michel catalogue.
Sinegubov V. Not a rarity, but a tradition // Philately of the USSR. - 1975. - No. 11. - S. 22. (Date of access: August 28, 2015) Archived on August 28, 2015.
Scott catalog data.
Levikov O., Torgashin V. Vintage territories of the world (Angola, Bateken, Benin, Botswana, Bouvet, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Gabon, Gambia) // Philately. - 2008. - No. 9. - S. 25-32.
Norway: Specialized Stamps: Bouvet Oya Stamps. Jay Smith & Associates:. Date of treatment: December 7, 2009. Archived from the original on April 12, 2012.
Sverre Morken (Norwegian). Kunstnere i Nittedal. Cultureliv. Nittedalsporten.no; Håkon Røvang. Date of treatment: December 6, 2010. Archived from the original on April 12, 2012.
Literature
Norway // Large Philatelic Dictionary / N. I. Vladinets, L. I. Ilyichev, I. Ya. Levitas, P. F. Mazur, I. N. Merkulov, I. A. Morosanov, Yu. K. Myakota, S A. Panasyan, Yu. M. Rudnikov, M. B. Slutsky, V. A. Yakobs; under total ed. N. I. Vladints and V. A. Jacobs. - M .: Radio and communication, 1988. - 320 p. — 40,000 copies. — ISBN 5-256-00175-2.
Norway (Kingdom of Norway) // Philatelic geography (foreign countries): Handbook / L. L. Lepeshinsky. - M .: Communication, 1967. - S. 77. - 480 p.
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