Polish Post
Organizations
in wich Poland participates or participated

Poczta Polska - The Polish Post

The Polish postal service was created on October 18, 1558, when king Zygmunt August established a permanent postal route from Kraków to Venice (later also to Vilnius) in order to manage affairs in Italy. For many years the service was financed from the royal treasury, until in 1647 king Władysław IV introduced the post tax ("podatek podwodowy"). In the 17th century Poland was engaged in a series of devastating conflicts, and development of the postal service languished until the reign of King Stanisław August Poniatowski. It was then made available to all the citizens at flat rates, and postmen (known as "pocztylion" or "kursor") got official uniforms and post horns.
On January 1, 1860 the Polish Kingdom (under Russian supervision)issued it's first post stamp. The model of this stamp was that of the Russian stamps then in use. The value is 10 kopeke, the text is in cyrillic characters, like usual in Russia. After the uprising of 1863-64 the area lost it's autonomy and also the right on own stamps. Only one Polish stamp had been issued at that moment.
       1860 - First stamp           
        Kingdom Poland
When the independence was regained in 1918, stamps of the former occuping countries (Austria, Russia and Germany) where temporary used by overprinting them. In February 1919 the first stamps of the new republik were issued. The interwar period saw the rapid development of the postal system as new services were introduced (e.g. money transfers, payment of pensions, delivery of magazines, air mail).
Many important events in the history of Poland involved the postal service, like the defense of the Polish Post Office in Danzig in 1939 and the participation of the Scouts' Postal Service in the Warsaw Uprising. The history of Poland during the last two centuries was very turbulent. That is why the philately of Poland is a very fascinating matter.

        1860 - First stamp
        Republic Poland
                                                   
A Polish stamp on foreign issue
Several countries used an image of a Polish stamp as an illustration of their own stamps. Below you find some examples.
Joint issues
The joint issues that Poland released together with other postal organisations can be fount on the page
Topics/Joined issues with Poland.

More information

Polonica stamps:

Cuba 1977, 12 IV
Guinea, Rep. 2009, 01 II
 Guinea, Rep. 2009, 10 IV
Hungary 1963, 09 V
 Netherlands 2011, 07 IV