Today’s cover of the month is a so-called letter card (or card letter) sent on 13.6.1941 by a Dr. Wirtz (possibly an ophthalmologist) to a Mrs. Rosa Zarotti in Eglisau in the district of Bülach in the Unterland of the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland. The card is postmarked with 20 Rp. – Gentian motif in red – postage stamp imprint and shows Vaduz with the Rhine Valley on the full page on the back.
But what is a letter card? According to Ulrich Häger’s “Großes Lexikon der Philatelie”, a letter card is a cardboard sheet to be folded two or three times, with a gummed and generally perforated margin (to be seen on the above cover) and value stamp imprint. As far as I know, there are only two of these letter cards from Liechtenstein, the one described above and a card also franked with 20 Rp. but with the municipality of Schaan on the back.
Both letter cards were valid from February 1940 – April 30, 1948. The cards were printed in halftone gravure by Imprimerie Courvoisier (Druckvemerk) in sheets together with the postcards and reply postcards of numbers 17.1 – 22 according to the adjacent scheme. A total of 22640 pieces of both letter cards were issued. Based on the print run of the letter cards, 11,320 sheets must have been printed.
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