Collecting stamps of Old Europe: September acquisitions

I'm continuing to share my new vintage acquisitions with you. After the August stamp flood, I put my shopping activity on hold for a while... partly for financial reasons, but mostly due to overeating. It's better to fast a bit; after that, you start to appreciate food more ;)
So, in September, I received just one letter containing two small lots of Austrian Empire stamps. Totally its just 12 stamps - but so much can be told about them!

In the photo above, you see the first of three pages in my album dedicated to Austrian "newspaper stamps." The top row contains issues from 1867 to 1899, and below that is the 1908 issue. I didnt manage yet to acquire the earliest newspaper stamps (the so-called "Blue Mercury") - they cost exorbitant amounts of money, simply does not to my level. I participated in an auction once, bidding for one such a stamp - the auction started at a symbolic 0.1 cents, but as my financial resources are very limited, I quickly fell behind the other bidders.

I found fascinating, how much different renditions of a same subject is out there... in terms of design. In the 1867 issues, you'll certainly notice similarities with the first English postage stamps and especially the first French stamps, which depicted the fertility goddess Demeter. The design evolved, and over the years, the appearance of the Mercury newspaper stamps certainly changed. It's a pure pleasure to examine this graphic design evolution over the course of three or four decades!

It is 11 'porto' stamps the 1916 release series. All of them costed me 100 rubles, plus registered mail delivery doubled the price - meaning that I paid $2 for it.) However, I consider this rather a bargain: the stamps of a beautiful cornflower blue color have high denominations of 1, 5, and 10 Kreuzer and seem to be a bit more rare.

Just checked eBay to educate myself about the price level - on the right you see a screencap of the first lot I stumbled upon. Mda... I'm truly feel shocked by the price tag, actually. These are used cancelled stamps, and the price includes international shipping, but still ... it is 1916, not 1849!!!

The word "porto" conceals an interesting postal technology known as "additional postage" stamps. The sender pays for their item with stamps, and the final postal fee is determined by the post office during delivery. Postal workers indicated the additional amount to be paid by the recipient by franking the envelope with the appropriate number of porto stamps. (The secret to its use appears to be lost today...) I can't say I've collected all the Austrian port stamps; (for now) I've completely ignored the port stamps of the Austrian Republic, which were issued after the collapse of the empire, from 1918 onward. But I have, at least, collected the main series and varieties of imperial port stamps.

To be completely happy (is it possible at all, even theoretically?..) I'm probably missing these two 1911 stamps. They're the highest-denomination stamps, and apparently because of this, fewer of them were issued, making them less common and much more expensive. I've seen several offers on auction site meshok.net — four dealers suggest them to be precise — but all the lots I see are canceled copies, with an ugly, dirty seal covering the stamp field, thus I consider the price tags to be exorbitant.

Итак, в сентябре я получил всего одно письмо - которое содержало два маленьких лота с марками австрийской империи. Фактически, один лот - это был Меркурий, "газетная марка" 1880 года номиналом 1/2 крейцера. Марка стоила мне 50 рублей (около 0,5 доллара). У меня уже есть один экземпляр, также гашеный, но этот издание выглядело симпатичнее и имело более интересную зубцовку, так что я безжалостно инвестировал 0,5 доллара в ее приобретение... хотя конечно строго говоря, не получил ничего нового, моя коллекция от этого не улучшилась.