The Flood Relief Issue of 1921

The catastrophic floods of September 1920 which devastated large areas of Austria were very little noticed outside the Federal Republic. Nevertheless, the damage which they inflicted was of such magnitude that federal relief had to be provided and it was decided to raise funds by issuing a special set of 20 overprinted stamps on 1 March 1921.

The designs of the two previous definitive sets of 1919 and 1921 were again selected, and printed in new colours. Unlike the Carinthian Plebiscite overprinted set, the 'Parliament Building' stamps were not issued imperforate but were line perforated 12˝, whilst all the other values were comb perforated 12.5. Two sizes of overprint were employed: the smaller Type I on the low values (up to 2Kr) on ordinary wove paper, except for the 1Kr and 1˝Kr values which were on a shiny-surfaced paper; and the larger Type II overprint on the high values 2˝Kr to 20Kr which are printed on granite paper. Some catalogues show some of the low values as printed on coloured papers; the list below is based on visual inspection of actual stamps! The 1Kr stamp has the usual 'H' variety in the eagle's wing, the 2Kr stamp is known with the "1920" of the overprint omitted and also as a vertical pair with imperf between, whilst the 4Kr value may be found with the name of the designer J.F. Renner missing from the bottom margin of the stamp. Once again, the bi-coloured values were printed in two operations. As for the Plebiscite issue, alignment marks were provided for the dual-colour printings. A total of 400,000 complete sets was printed; some values had larger printings eg 530,000 of the 1K. These stamps were sold at three times face value, the extra sums raised being spent on the flood relief. The issue was valid until 31 March 1921 - ie, only for one month.


ANKFaceColourNumber
3215hgrey on off-white paper324,000
32210hscarlet on pale rose paper324,000
32315hkhaki on slightly yellow (ochre?) paper324,000
32420hdark bluish green on blue paper396,000
32525hviolet on off-white paper324,000
32630hbrown on buff paper300,000
32740hred on slightly yellow paper324,000
32850hdark greenish blue on blue paper420,000
32960holive on blue paper300,000
33080hred495,000
3311Krlight brown410,000
3322Krpale blue430,000
The 2˝Kr upwards are in the "Parliament" design
3332˝Krbrownish red on granite paper302,000
3343Krblue frame, green centre on granite paper302,000
3354Krred frame, violet centre on granite paper302,000
3365Krblue on granite paper302,000
3377˝Krgreen on granite paper302,000
33810Krgreen frame, brownish-red centre on granite paper302,000
33920Krpale violet frame, light brown centre on granite paper302,000