100 years - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 1981 - 4 Shilling

June 3, 1881 is considered the birthday of the Austrian telephone company. At that time the first telephone systems were built by the Viennese private telegraph company. On 1 December of the same year, Austria's first central telephone exchange was opened in Vienna. She worked at this time for exactly 154 participants. As early as 1882, the first public speaking station was available to the quite interested public in the premises of the Vienna Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, an English company had acquired the permission to build and operate telephone networks in several cities in the Austrian part of the Reich. Thus, the telephone traffic in 1882 in Graz, Prague and Trieste, 1883 in Lemberg, Bieltz-Biala, Chernivtsi, Pilsen and Reichenberg were recorded. As demand was soon greater than supply, Swiss Post decided to actively participate in the expansion of telephony in addition to private companies. At the beginning of August 1886, she opened the Vienna-Brno route as the first interurban telephone line. After tough negotiations, the Post succeeded in repurchasing the private licenses it had granted and since 1 January 1895 the Austrian telephone network has been owned by the state administration. The brand image shows a microphone designed as a desk phone for home and PBX systems, which was created around the turn of the century. The original of this "high-end phone" can be viewed in the Technical Museum.