Verla mill museum

Miniature sheet of four stamps

Finland issued a miniature sheet of four stamps on 2 April 2001. The sheet is dedicated to Verla, a unique factory milieu on the UNESCO's World Heritage List. The miniature sheet was designed by Erik Bruun. The sheet contains four stamps, denominated at 3.60mk each.

Unique industrial entity

The unique industrial entity is located in south-western Finland, at the border of the Jaala and Valkeala municipalities. The miniature sheet shows the groundwood and board mill, the manor-like house of the mill manager's residence, stately as a manor house.
At the upper margin, Bruun shows the process in action: the spruce log have been turned into sheets of cardboard, turned out by heavy machinery powered by the rapids.

Verla groundwood mill

The Verla groundwood mill was founded in 1872 by Hugo Neuman, a Finnish engineer. One decade later, business took of really well under the Austrian-born paper-making master Gottlieb Kreidl. The main product of the board mill was the white woodpulp cardboard used chiefly by box factories and bookbinderies. The cardboard was exported to Russia and to Central Europe. At its largest, the workforce of Verla was as large as 150 persons.