St. Andrew's cross (philately)

As a St. Andrew's cross is referred to in philately a feature that occurs in sheet-fed printing.

Andreas crosses on empty fields

The first diagonal crosses the world in stamps can be found in the first Austrian postage stamp issue dated 1 June 1850. These are colored crosses that are found instead of the last four stamps in the sheet.

A print sheet at the time included the four switches sheets of eight rows and columns. So this gives 64 stamps per sheet. At that time, special attention was placed but value that the purchase of multiple arcs ( eg companies) there are no crooked amounts. The former currency in Austria was the guilder currency, where 1 corresponded Gulden 60 Kreuzer. That's why we came up with the idea to release the last four fields of an arc. Buyer of seven 6- cruiser - sheet you had to, for example, only 42 guilders and 44 guilders and 48 cruisers not pay.

However, the releasing of the last four fields yielded a new problem that was solved with the introduction of diagonal crosses. The empty fields would namely be used ideal for the manufacture of counterfeit stamps for counterfeiters. Therefore it was decided to make them unusable by the imprint of Andrew's crosses. The St. Andrew's crosses have the particular color of the stamp and come in two different types. The St. Andrew's cross can either be in color and the background is white or vice versa. You are always in the last row of the sheet and can be placed either in the middle or on the left or right edge. Even when the Emperor head 1858 Issue Andreas crosses were used.

1916 but they were used a short time again. The arc of that Eilmarkenausgabe where to find these diagonal crosses consisted of 13 rows and 8 columns, so that 104 special delivery stamps were contained in an arc. In this case, the middle four special delivery stamps of the last row have been replaced by Andra crosses. The output and production of these sheets with Andrew's crosses was not originally planned. Due to the strong opposition of the triangular precursor of this issue you went through for this Eilmarkenausgabe to landscape.

Andrew's crosses are very popular today among collectors. From the early years of St. Andrew's crosses, however, hardly pieces are obtained, which are still coherent with an original brand, because at that time hardly noticed the diagonal crosses and as good as ever torn away ( in the first editions still cut) were. However, since many of Andrew's crosses have been used due to their coating as a closure marks for letters, there are several individual pieces or strip of four. Andrew's crosses from 1916, there are still very many, because philately was widespread at that time.

Andreas crosses as devaluation

In the German Federal Post Office presented Andrew's crosses (including cancellation crosses) a form of devaluation dar. For the shipping point for collectors brands (from 1991 also with first-day special cancellations ) Bundesdruckerei printed from 1970 all stamp sheets with day stamps. Were the stamp greater than the brands that were lying between brands which have had only small segments of the stamp, indicated by - Andrew's crosses as a committee and should be destroyed after the separation of the sheets - also mitgedruckte. Occasionally, however, those pieces came in collectors' hands. Since October 1994, the only published ten sheets are no longer printed with cancellation crosses: stamp, regardless of size, can be placed here so that they do not necessarily affect several brands. If necessary, they extend into the margin.

Swell

• Philately ( Austria )
• German Federal Post Office