Premium services: registered post, special delivery, and recorded delivery

The fee for registration and special delivery was 3 shillings on top of the basic letter rate, but there was no 3s stamp.

Special Delivery 1967 - 4d brown and 2 x 1/6d Machins


Registered 1970 - 5d blue and 2 x 1/6d Machins with a nice Burnham Market village registration label. Even now the permanent population is less than 1,000 although it is swelled all year round by visitors from London and has acquired the nick-name Chelsea-on-sea.


Recorded Delivery. Registration cost a lot of money in 1960 and there was a need for a low-cost confirmation of delivery, without the insurance element. The recorded delivery service was introduced in 1961 with an initial fee of 6d. By 1967 the fee had been increased to 9d, still considerably less than the registration fee. Recorded Delivery could also be used with second class mail from the introduction of the 2-tier system in September 1968. The letters had to be posted over the counter, but no special handling was involved until delivery and ordinary machine postmarks were applied, rather than the counter stamps used for the higher-cost services.

4d Machin and 9d Wilding, 1s Wilding and 1d Machin, 1968 (By this time Machins had been issued for all the values shown here.)



1d and 1s Machins, 1969


1st class rate 5d blue with 9d green Machin 1969


Recorded Delivery (continued) - 1st class 5d rate and 9d Recorded Fee

- paid by 2d and 1s Machins 1969


- paid by 4d centre band and 10d Machins 1968, a nice use of the 10d unfortunately on an oversize cover


- paid by a pair of 7d Machins, 1968. Possibly my favourite colour of all for Machins

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