Czech stamp wins Grand Prix at WIPA world exhibition in Vienna

Prague, Oct 9 (CTK) - The Czech Post's (CP) stamp honouring Prague's Postal Museum has won the prestigious Grand Prix competition for the world's most beautiful postage stamp at the WIPA world exhibition in Vienna, CP told CTK Tuesday.

Postage authorities could each field a single stamp out of their collections on display in the competition. CP, the state postal services operator, has chosen a stamp designed by Slovak artist Dusan Kallay and engraved by Czech Milos Ondracek.

The stamp depicting an ancient postage emblem surrounded with a stylised map and postmen's figures, won the contest, followed by rival stamps from Liechtenstein and Slovakia.

The stamps ending among the first ten also included those from Sweden, the Vatican, Ukraine, Croatia, Russia, Germany and Iceland.

"The Czech Republic's victory means an appreciation of the high quality of the stamp production in our country, While many rival postage authorities competed with blocks of stamps, which are more difficult to produce, we've won with quite a common stamp printed by the offset method," CP's stamp production section head Bretislav Janik said.