Austria Post issues 3D printed stamp

By Linn’s Staff

On Oct. 18 Austria Post issued a stamp produced using 3D printing.

The €6.50 stamp features an edelweiss bloom, made up of white bracts surrounding tiny yellow flowers. The Oct. 18 Edelweiss stamp comes 20 years after Austria Post issued an embroidered Edelweiss stamp (Scott 2019).

The Austrian embroidery manufacturer Hammerle & Vogel designed and printed the stamp using 3D printing, a manufacturing method that forms three-dimensional objects from digital designs by depositing material in successive layers.

Austria Post said that Hammerle & Vogel applied liquid photopolymer onto stamp sheets by using ultra-fine nozzles to form microscopic droplets in multiple layers. Each layer was cured with UV light before the next was applied.

“In this way,” Austria Post said, “the edelweiss blossom is built up layer by layer, complete with printed hairs in varying shades and heights — with the yellow florets at the centre standing slightly higher than the white bracts.”

The bloom design is soft and flexible, according to Austria Post. The text on the stamp was also 3D printed in raised relief.

The new technology of 3D printing has been utilized on traditional paper products outside of stamps, such as in printing books in braille. Others have proposed that 3D printing could be used to guard against counterfeiting.

Researchers from Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology published an article in the November 2017 issue of Advanced Materials Technologies that presents 3D printed security features. The authors explore if these security features can better protect banknotes, documents and branded products than 2D security features such as holograms.

Austria Post’s 2025 Edelweiss 3D printed stamp is featured with its first embroidered Edelweiss stamp of 2005, along with more of what Austria Post calls its most outstanding philatelic innovations, in a new book titled Innovation available from Austria Post.

The 2025 stamp measures 33 millimeters by 42mm with perforations gauge 14 x 13¾. Hammerle & Vogel printed the stamp in 1,800 sheets of 50 for a total quantity of 90,000 stamps.

Austria Post includes two postcard sets with the Oct. 18 issue: one shows a marmot and the other shows an Alpine flower painting. Each set contains a postcard and Edelweiss Reloaded stamp.

The stamp is available on the Austrian Post online shop, https://onlineshop.post.at as well as on the WOPA+ Stamps and Coins website at www.wopa-plus.com.

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