Local mail and rayon stamps of Switzerland information

The local mail and rayon stamps of 1850 and 1852 constituted the first series of postage stamps issued by the Swiss Post. In philately, they are among the most sought-after Swiss stamps, with a 5 rappen Rayon I stamp selling for the record price of CHF 348,000 (USD 293,000) at auction in 2008.^[1]

After the reconstitution of Switzerland as a federal state in 1848, the authority to operate a postal service passed from the cantons to the Confederation, and the federal postal service was founded in 1849. Its local mail and rayon stamps were the first definitive stamps valid in all of Switzerland, although the stamps issued by the postal authorities of the cantons of Geneva, Basel-Stadt and Zürich remained concurrently valid until 1854, when all stamps were supplanted by the "Sitting Helvetia" series of federal stamps.