The first Latvian stamps were printed in December 1918. At that time they had a very serious shortage of paper to print so they printed their first stamps on the back side of the German military maps left behind at the end of world war 1. These stamps are probably the only ones where the front and back sides of the stamps are interesting.
Before world war 1, Latvia was part of the Russian Empire, and Russian Imperial postage stamps were being used. They were occupied by Germany during the war. During this time German Imperial definitive postage stamps overprinted with "Postgebiet / Ob Ost" were used in Latvia.
Republic of Latvia emerged after the departure of Germany at the end of the war, in November 1918, and in December their first postage stamps were printed. These stamps printed by the Schnakenburg printing works in Riga.
The design includes reference to Latvia’s three provinces, and the representation is done twice:
- Three stars are placed on the rim of the sun.
- Three rye ears are held together by a ring inside the sun.
Stamp collectors collect pieces of these stamps to recreate the map as a jigsaw puzzle.
You will also find some old Latvian stamps printed on bank notes that were incompletely printed.
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