Verigar issue

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15-heller value

Verigar is the first postage stamp series issued in Slovenia that was not an Austrian one. It was designed late 1918 in Ljubljana before the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and the first values of the series came into usage on 3 January 1919, when the new state had already been formed.

The name of the country was written in Cyrillic and Latin script ("Држава СХС" - "Država SHS") for the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the union of these three peoples in Southern Austrian-Hungary (nowadays Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serbian province of Vojvodina).

The stamp design, by painter Ivan Vavpotič, represents a man who has broken the chains enslaving him; he stands in front of a rising sun. The scene symbolizes the freedom of the Slavic peoples from the Austria-Hungary.

The series' name comes from the word veriga that means chains in the Slovenian language.

For its 75th anniversary, the Slovenian post issued 19 March 1993 a stamp using the Verigar man.