Sigmund Friedl
Encyclopedia
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n philatelists, who misused his knowledge toward the end of his life to make forgeries
Philatelic fakes and forgeries
In general, philatelic fakes and forgeries refers to labels that look like postage stamps but are not. Most have been produced to deceive or defraud...
harming the stamp collectors
Stamp collecting
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is one of the world's most popular hobbies, with the number of collectors in the United States alone estimated to be over 20 million.- Collecting :...
.
Sigmund Friedl's interest in postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
s started already at the age of 13. Only two years later, he started trading them. In 1872, he opened his own stamp shop in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. Soon he became a stamp expert and started working as an examiner. He had great success with his shop, for example, he sold the unique Tre Skilling Banco for a sum of 4000 gulden
Austro-Hungarian gulden
The Gulden or forint was the currency of the Austrian Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1754 and 1892 when it was replaced by the Krone/korona as part of the introduction of the gold standard. In Austria, the Gulden was initially divided into 60 Kreuzer, and in Hungary, the...
to the famous collector, Philipp von Ferrary
Philipp von Ferrary
Philip Ferrari de La Renotière, Duke of Gallièra was a legendary stamp collector, assembling probably the most complete worldwide collection that ever existed, or is likely to exist...
. Through his good relationship with the post, he was able to cheaply obtain the remaining stocks of several postage stamps and resell them.
At the same time, he wrote the first Austrian stamp catalogues and enhanced the stamp album
Stamp album
A stamp album is a book, often loose-leafed , in which a collection of postage stamps may be stored and displayed.- Overview :...
s. Finally, Sigmund Friedl established his own stamp museum in his villa in Unterdöbling
Unterdöbling
Unterdöbling was an independent municipality until 1892 and is today a part of Döbling, the 19th district of Vienna. It is also one of the 89 Katastralgemeinden.- Geography :...
. In 1881 and 1890, he organised the first major Austrian stamp exhibitions, which also attracted international attention.
To Austrian philatelists, Sigmund Friedl is known mainly for his Friedl perforation
Perforation
A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes are called a perforation...
s and the disreputable Friedl forgeries. The Friedl perforations are private perforations of Austrian definitive stamp
Definitive stamp
A definitive stamp is a postage stamp, that is part of a regular issue of a country's stamps available for sale by the postal service for an extended period of time...
s, which were tolerated by the post. The Friedl perforations always had a different number of perfs than the original perforation of the definitive stamp series made by the post. The forged stamps were mainly forgeries of the Mercury
Red Mercury
The Red Mercury is the rarest of Austrian newspaper stamps .Austria's newspaper stamps first appeared in 1851; they depicted a profile of Mercury, the Roman messenger god, and were not denominated, the color of the stamp indicating the value...
series issued in 1851, which were sold to collectors with fraudulent intent. After the deception was exposed, Friedl had to buy back some of these stamps.