Austria in transition: 1918 - 1921

Local Liberation Issue, Spielfeld, August 20, 1920.

As with Radkersburg, Spielfeld in Tyrol introduced an overprint on the regular postage stamps to celebrate the evacuation of the Yugoslav troops on August 7, 1920. This was also authorised by the Ministry of Communications, and the overprinting was effected by hand-stamp by the Liberation Committee on any postage stamps submitted to it against a payment of 2 and 5 Kronen for low and high denominations respectively. The overprint read "Befreiung / Spielfelds / 29. Juli 1920".

Letter to Graz dated 8.8.20, with overprint showing the variety ‘missing s’.

On about half the issues the final s in Spielfelds of the 3-line overprint is missing because of a failure of the primitive hand-stamp. The private commemorative cancellation was done with a circular rubberstamp supplied by the Liberation Committee with "Spielfeld / Befreiung" around the circumference and the dates "8.8.20" and "29.7.1920" across the centre.

The cancellation of current postage stamps with the small circular hand-stamp was not authorised and after August 8th 1920 the overprinted stamps were invalid. On October 12th 1920, the Ministry of Communications declared that the overprint was done without the approval of the postal authorities, and it therefore had no official standing. The official postal cancellation for the regular mail was the Yugoslav "SPILJE" obliterator, seen on the cover below sent to Wien, dated 10.VIII.20.

Private commemorative cancellation. double circle, diameter 23˝mm, "8.8.20".

Yugoslavian official postal cancellation, circular, diameter 27Ľmm, "SPILJE /10. VIII.20 / * b *"