Indicia (philately)

Postage stamps, official stamps, which are used for collection or elimination of postage fees ( or pay for ). Usually one distinguishes four types of postage stamps:

• The stamps
• The cards, envelopes or forms with stamps overprint ( Postal )
• The International Reply Coupons
• Indicia imprints

With the Internet brand, it is possible to print postage indicia on the computer (virtual stamps) itself and thus to forgo conventional stamps.

German Reich and the Federal Republic of Germany

Etymology

The legal history and legal dogmatic early and original essay by Josef Kohler on the Law of stamps from 1892 consistently used the word " stamp ". Only on page 19 of his essay, he speaks for the first time unsystematic and as a synonym once each by "post mark " (p. 334), " postage stamps " and " stamps " (p. 335 f.) The dictionaries of the German language and lexicons took the term " postage stamp " on later and also only sporadically. It can be concluded that " postage stamp " 1892 times in everyday linguistic and unusual word was. In everyday language, it also seems to have not taken a firm footing later; only a few users have apparently requires post at the post office ever " postage stamps ".

The result is the expression " postage stamps " but earlier. So already existed in 1888, the book " The news of the postage stamps " and in 1892, in the Kohler presented his essay, was the "Handbook for postage stamps collector" already in 7th edition. The term " postage stamp " therefore seems to have formed because stamps were later used to identify the fee paid for other postal services, so that the word ' letter ' de facto no longer corresponded completely to the reality: "Since the B [ called brand ] also will be used for franking of other mail and telegrams, the name of postage stamps is officially adopted. "This was " postage stamps established " as an umbrella term for" Stamp ".

German Federal Post Office 1949-1994

The German Federal Post Office was as a state organ in Germany 1949-1994 " Official stamps " out; " Postage stamp " was the official legal and legislative term. " Stamp ", " postal stamp" and others were expressions of the everyday and colloquial language or jargon at this time. The sovereign " postage stamps " were as money similar to the " official stamp " within the meaning of the Criminal Code ( StGB). Your forgery was punished under § 148, § 149 of the Criminal Code as " stamps forgery ".

German Post AG

Amendments to the Basic Law ( Constitution) of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Postal Act was the sovereign or public federal post in 1994 in the private or civil law " German Post Aktiengesellschaft ", Bonn converted ( known as post - privatization).

Since 1994, the German Post AG sells as private law business enterprises the stamps which are issued by the Federal Ministry of Finance from 1994 to 1997 by the Federal Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications since 1998. These are today according to jurisprudence and decisions of the Bundesgerichtshof private or civil law "little bearer securities " pursuant to § 807 BGB. Your fake is therefore ceased as stamp forgery, but forgery under § 267 of the Criminal Code.

The old concept of " postage stamp " in the Federal Republic of Germany therefore legally and linguistically an almost gone under historical word. Only eV on behalf of the organization of professional philatelist, General Postwertzeichen Dealers Association APHV, the term has been preserved.