Surprise stamp sheet

At the latest club meeting Leo surprised me with a Sberatel (name of the International collectors fair in Prague) Personalised Stamp Sheet from Czech republic, with an antique front-seater-3-wheel-motorcycle. In the sheet are 9 stamps and nine labels with 4x and 5x an image of the 3-wheeler, a Laurin & klement from 1911.

Klement, a bookseller, and Laurin, a locksmith, started in 1895 with the production of bicycles in the town Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic (at that time still Austria-Hungary). Soon they also produced motorcycles. In 1905 autos joined and in 1925 the factory was bought my a machinery producer, ŠKODA. Skoda started the present car factory in the factory building of L&K. Nowadays the Skoda museum is housed in the old factory buildings next to the present factory, and this is where we can find this nice tricycle model, the L&K type LW.
In 1905 a comparable kind of front-seater was built, but because the seat in the front made that the engine cooling was not satisfying, in 1907 this model LW with a 780 cc (5 hp) engine was introduced, where the L stands for Last (= German for load) and the W for Wassergekühlt (= German for watercooled). 1911 was the last year of the motorcycle production.

Skoda includes the L&K years in its history, and celebrated its centennial in 1995.

Cancellation stamp of Pilsen, where the Skoda factory is based

With thanks for a personalised sheet.

Hans de Kloet

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