I have a part postmark "der Drau" dating from 1978.
The only town shown in Wikipedia is Spittal an der Drau postcodes 9800,9701,9702.
However the postcode on the bottom of this stamp is xx12. The first digit appears to have a rounded top while the second digit is either 0,8 or 9 ( outside chance 6).
I immediately thought it might be 9812 - however this is for a different town, although it is local.
Also judging by the relative positions of the letters shown and the postcode the there are probably 10 -12 letters/spaces prior to the der. It could just be "Spittal an" but the postcode is wrong.Obviously all the references I have checked are current and 1978 was a long time ago!
Any brilliant ideas - or wild guesses ? Any Austrian members here?
Now now you shouldn't be plagiarising a certain antipodeian stamp board. I will report you to Glen Stephens who might sue you for copyright violation !!
9812 ( which is the most likely) is a village called Pusarnitz, which is part of another entity called Lurnfeld, near Spittal an der Drau. All current records I have accessed show neither of these sports the "an der drau" suffix ( although they are on the Drau). Pusarnitz is too long anyway, so either Lurnfeld or the all-encompassing Spittal must be the answer. As no part of the first name is visible ( why did I soak it off-piece ?) I have to conclude that it is an insufficient evidence case and relegate it to my duplicate stamps box.
Thanks again for taking the trouble. I will really have to get to grips with Photobucket.
Thank you very much ( sorry for not getting back before ). I think you could be right. I am sure that before the days of postcodes there were much more examples of common place names with suffixes to distinguish them. Of course they have possibly dropped them now that placeds can be identified by postcode. I suspect that this particular stamp dates from the erly days of postcode usage ( and perhaps the suffix was still being used). It would be interesting to see if a more modern postmark has had the suffix dropped.
On that well-known down-under board ( where postmarks are much collected on classic stamps0 there have been numerous examples of spelling changes over time, so it could be the case here. Also there are changes in jurisdiction which can cause changes.
Thanks again for your help!
Malcolm
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