Whether the trend is being driven by improved automated postal sorting machines or the insatiable demand of stamp collectors for ever-more novel designs is unclear, but lately more nations are issuing commemorative stamps that arouse the urge to lick, sniff and touch.

Austria has been a pioneer in this area. In addition to joining forces with Austria’s famed Swarovski Crystal to create a swan stamp imbedded with bits of real glass crystal, the Austrian post office honored the UEFA European Championship by creating a soccer ball stamp out of a synthetic mix of rubbery polyurethane. To immortalize Andi Herzog’s winning soccer goal in the 1998 World Cup, it put a three-second moving image of the goal on a postage stamp, and to honor simultaneously a native craft and national flora, Austria issued embroidered stamps featuring its Edelweiss and Clusius flowers.

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