This special stamp from Liechtenstein Post is dedicated to the fact that e-mail has now been around in this world for 50 years. In 1971, Ray Tomlinson in the USA sent a message from one computer to another for the first time. He chose the @ sign – which is also the motif of the trademark – to link the user name with the host name of the computer, thus establishing individual addresses. This paved the way for sending personalized messages. But why this mark? Simply because it had not been used in computer science until then. Only 10 years later, several universities joined together in a computer network and communicated via this electronic mail. In 1984, Germany and Israel were the first countries in the world to be connected to this computer network. The first e-mail arrived on 3 August 1984 CET from Michael Rotert at the University of Karlsruhe. From then on, e-mail began its triumphal march, and – sometimes to the chagrin of philatelists – it is impossible to imagine modern communication without it.
I can exactly date my first contact with e-mail. It was in the spring of 1992 when I started a new job in Switzerland. At the same time, a new postdoc who had returned from the USA started working there, and he complained bitterly that the e-mail system at our place of work at that time did not really work yet. I kept a low profile so as not to embarrass myself, as I had never heard of e-mail …. And today? It’s hard to imagine everyday life – especially business life – without it. Nevertheless, I try not to write e-mails or WhatsApp when I’m on holiday, but nice old postcards. You can hang them up at home too….
Issue: 50 years of the first e-mail
- Tax value/motif: CHF 1.00 50 years of the first e-mail
- Stamp size: 33.334 x 33.334 mm
- Perforation: 12 ¼ x 12 ¼
- Sheet format: 146 x 208 mm
- Design: Detlef Behr, Cologne
- Printing: Offset 2-colour black + Pantone 298 C Gutenberg AG, SchaanPaper Stamp paper PVA 110 g/m2, gummed
- Circulation: 36 000