Norwegian Postage Stamps are considered to be some of the most beautiful in the world, next to Iceland and Britain. Within this, the posthorn series are said to be the most beautiful of them all, beginning in 1872(-1875). The first Norwegian stamp however, came out in 1855. Pictured was a shield, with the national lion sort of "carved out", and had the value of 4
skilling (
Schilling, see norwegian
Krone for todays currency, skilling is way old). Worth noting, is that this stamp, the 4 Skilling of 1855, did not have jagged edges, that was not to come until 1856. On those were
King Oscar (2?), the swedish/norwegian ruler till 1905. Head pointing to the right, values 2-3-4-8 skilling, yellow(ish)-grey-blue-red in color. This trend, the weapon\lion\king\skilling style continued until 1872, as aforementioned, when the posthorn-style arrived.
The Posthorn
The first posthorn styled postage stamps were valued 1-7, barring 5, skilling. That was in 1872-75. Shortly after, in 1877, the
øre (small 1/100 of
krone, in scandinavian countries) came. Valued 1-3-5-10-12-20-25-35-50-60 øre, light brown-orange-blue-red-matt green-red brown-violet-sea green-purple red-dark blue. (The 12 øre matt green is one of the most expensive in the entire spectrum). The posthorn series still contiunes today, and just to summarize them, there has been ~30 editions of them, including the V-stamps (
Victory "
V" printed on stamps during the second world war) and the new.
Other
However, also during
WW2, in 1942 -
Vidkun Quisling (see
Quisling) - Norwegian (
Nazi, bad bad man)
Minister President (what ever that was) somehow got his head on a stamp. These are labelled 20+30
Norge (Norway), 1-2-42 20+30 Norge, Rikstinget 1942 20+30 Norge. Then, in 1945, our also noble (then) King,
Haakon VII, coming back from exile in England, finally came through with some quality - colorful pieces, seven in all, stating there was now peace in Norway. The moral of this writeup is; there's a lot of history in Norwegian stamps, if you happen to be a
philatelist (stamp-collector), get a hold of some.