Kochermarken

At the time that contract printing of private postal stationery was first introduced, regulations describing exactly what could be imprinted with postal indicia were lax. The enterprising confectionery and novelties firm of A. Kocher & Fils produced “stamp collars” advertising the firm to which they then had postage imprinted, creating their own “Kocher stamps” in 1909. Outrage at this seeming privatization of the post along with fear of an unbridled proliferation of new stamps caused policies to be quickly adopted that halted their production and prevented the production of others. Three values of indicia were printed on each of four different colors of collar, creating twelve varieties in all. Each variety was produced in quantities of 500-3,000.