Sigmund Friedl

Sigmund Friedl ( born January 11, 1851 in Leibnik, Moravia, † April 7, 1914 in Vienna ) was an Austrian Philatelist, who took advantage of his knowledge to the detriment of collectors for the production of counterfeit stamp towards the end of his life.

Life

Sigmund Friedl became interested in stamps at the age of thirteen. Two years later he began to trade with them. In 1872 he opened his own stamp shop in Vienna. He soon established himself as a stamp expert and began to work as an examiner. With his business he had great success. So he sold, for example, the unique Tre Skilling Banco for the 4000 guilders in 1894 to the famous collector Philipp von Ferrary. Also, he managed through relationships to the post office to post office stamps to acquire numerous Remnants cheap and to sell.

At the same time he wrote the first Austrian stamp catalogs and developed the then stamp albums on. Sigmund Friedl finally, established its own stamp museum in his villa in Unterdöbling. In 1881 and 1890 he organized the first major Austrian stamp exhibitions, which were also international attention.

Under Austrian philatelists Sigmund Friedl is known mainly for its Friedl - perforations and the unrühmlicheren Friedl counterfeiting. In the Friedel- Perforations it was a private Perforation Austrian postage stamps, which was tolerated by the post office. The Friedel- Perforations were always carried out in other Zähnungsgraden than the respective Originalzähnung the post of postal stamp series. In the forgeries it was all about the fakes Merkure from 1851 that were sold fraudulently to collectors. This had partly after the discovery of the fraud again by Sigmund Friedl be repurchased.