Original Item: Only One Available. Now here is a rather rare offering we are bringing to the table. This sign is one of many that would have been located on, in or around the surrounding areas of a Postal Service center, the Posthülfstelle. The sign consists of a wooden sign/box frame with the central tin sheet painted advertising the Post Office. The paint is retained quite well with minor areas of loss present. The wooden frame is in surprisingly really nice condition with only minor separation present in the spots where each piece was connected.

A wonderful sign that comes more than ready for further research and display.

Until the eighteen-thirties there was no State provision for the letter traffic in country districts. Residents in the country must deliver all their letters at, or fetch them from, the nearest post office, which was done on market-day or by messengers. In 1824 a beginning was made in Prussia by the introduction experimentally of a delivery service at certain post offices. In the following years the number of rural deliverers and the number of posting- boxes in the villages were increased, and a uniform delivery fee {Landbestellgeld) of 1 silver groschen instituted. The delivery fee was abolished on the 1st January 1872 (law of 28th October,1871). This meant the abandonment of a yearly revenue of 1 1/2 million Marks.

In spite of the increase in the number of post offices there were still in 1880 as many as 19 million people, the greater half of the whole nation, and 17,000 localities, outside the limits of the postal service. In 1880 a great step forward was taken. The number of rural deliverers was largely increased, and also the number of postal stations in the country {Posthulfstellen). A daily delivery was extended to the greater number of places, the rural routes in most cases being so arranged that the deliverer returned by the same route, thereby enabling an answer to be sent the same day to letters received on the outward journey.

Deutsche Reichspost
Upon the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the break-up of the German Confederation in the Peace of Prague, the North German Confederation was established, instigated by the Prussian minister-president Otto von Bismarck. Originally a military alliance, it evolved to a federation with the issuing of a constitution with effect from 1st July 1867. In the course of the war, Prussian troops had occupied the Free City of Frankfurt and the King of Prussia (later to become the German Kaiser, or Emperor) had purchased the remnants of the Thurn-und-Taxis Post organization. According to article 48, the federal area of the Northern German states, de facto an enlarged Prussia, came under the united postal authority, led by director Heinrich von Stephan.

With the German unification upon the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the Deutsche Reichspost was established as a state monopoly and became the official national postal authority of the German Empire including the annexed territory of Alsace-Lorraine. Its official name was Kaiserliche Post und Telegraphenverwaltung. The Southern German federated states of Baden (until 1872), Württemberg (until 1902) and Bavaria initially maintained separate state post authorities that nevertheless were integrated into the nationwide administration. On 1st January 1876 a Reichspostamt under Postmaster General von Stephan was split-off from Bismarck's Reich Chancellery as a government agency in its own right. In the First World War, a Reichsabgabe tax was levied on the postal traffic from 1st August 1916 in order to finance the war expenses.

With the establishment of the Weimar Republic upon the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the former Reichspostamt in Berlin became the Reichspostministerium. After the period of hyperinflation, the Deutsche Reichspost (DRP) agency was again spun off in 1924 and operated as a state-owned enterprise. On 2nd June 1932, Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach was appointed Reichspost Minister by Chancellor Franz von Papen and he maintained his office upon the Machtergreifung of the NSDAP Party in 1933, "assisted" by NSDAP State Secretary Wilhelm Ohnesorge. The postal area was significantly enlarged with the incorporation of the Saar territory in 1935, the Austrian Anschluss in 1938, and the annexation of the Sudetenland according to the Munich Agreement. It was during this time that the Reichspost installed the first public videophone.

In the Second World War the Reichspost authority spread out to the Polish areas annexed by Germany, such as the Reichsgau Wartheland, the Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreußen, and the Polish General Government. In 1941 postal codes were introduced. The Feldpost military mail organization of the Wehrmacht not only served Army, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine service members, but also SS-Verfügungstruppen, Waffen-SS and Reichsarbeitsdienst members in the field, becoming the general postal authority of the occupied territories. Deliveries were more and more affected by the advance of Allied troops from January 1945 onward. The Reichspost finally ceased to function with the German Instrument of Surrender on 8th May. The last Reichspostminister Julius Dorpmüller, a member of the Flensburg Government, was arrested two weeks later, and governmental authority was officially taken over by the Allied Control Council with the Berlin Declaration of 5th June.