Austrian Telephone Cards From The 1880-S

The Austrian postal and telegraph administration issued telephone cards, beginning in the 1880s, and I was surprised to learn (several years ago) that such things existed. This is not really something that I collect per se, but I have bought a couple of them, because I think they're just so cool!


The card above has a face value of 1 gulden and bears an inscription stating that it is a "Talking card for telephonic correspondence between the two government telegraph offices in Vienna and Brno, for a duration of 5 minutes, beginning on the day indicated above at the (Viennese) time written above." It was used at the Vienna stock exchange on 23 October, but with no indication of which year. It cannot have been before 1886, however, since that was when the Vienna-Brno phone line was established, the first long-distance line in Austria-Hungary (111 km as the crow flies).


This one has a face value of 20 kreuzer, and the inscription calls it a "Card for telephonic speech on the interurban line [Hirschwang N 8] up to the duration of 5 minutes." It was used in Hirschwang on 15 December 1889.

Does anyone here have a catalog that includes these cards, and if so, could you please provide me with catalog numbers and more precise information about dates of issue? The information that I've been able to find online is spotty at best.

From the Michel catalog.

The first is TK 1 first introduced in 1886.

The second is TK 5 introduced 1888/1889.

TK stands for Telefon Karte

Hope this helps.

Johan.

Very interesting. I've never seen those before. Thanks for sharing.

The cards mint with the tabs on the right side have a high cotation.
In this auction the types..(At the end).
https://docplayer.org/22725570-Pos-...en-euro.html

Thanks for the info, Johan! I have a Michel catalog for German Ganzsachen, but not Austrian.

Perf12: I saw some of those expensive mint cards when I was searching for information online. I wouldn't mind having some of those!

Rebooting this topic, since I've added a couple more cards to this collection.

Michel #TK 4, used at Wien Neumanngasse on 31 December 1888 for a local call in Vienna to Subscriber 1442.

Michel #TK 6, used at Neunkirchen on 28 July 1889 for a call on the interurban line Neunkirchen–Wiener Neustadt.

Michel #TK 8, used at the Vienna stock exchange on 2 April 1890 for an interurban call.

Here's a later formular card, Form No. 869, issued in October 1905. It was franked with Scott #122 and used at Tetschen an der Elbe (now Decín* in Czechia) on 1 December 1916 for an interurban call to telephone number 521 in Aussig (now Ústí nad Labem in Czechia).

*There should be haceks on both the e and the c, but this forum doesn't support them.

Michel #TK 1, used at the Vienna stock exchange for a call on the Vienna-Brno line. What made this card particularly attractive to me was that it's for the very first phone call of the year from the Vienna stock exchange: Card No. 1 on January 1st at 11:15 a.m. Which year? Probably 1887, possibly later.