Mail to Australia - correctly paid in 1990 but underpaid in 1970.

Reader MikeM has sent two examples of mail to Australia.  The 1970 letter is underpaid, the 1990 postcard properly paid but with an unusual postmark.

Starting with the postcard.  29p paid the worldwide airmail postcard from 2 October 1989 to 16 September 1990 when it rose to 31p.  For the collector of 'solo use' this is the obvious way to find them. 

29p Machin solo use on airmail postcard to Australia 25 May 1990.

The original deep mauve stamp was issued in 26 September 1989 in sheets printed by Harrisons on phosphor paper (SG X979).   It was also printed in booklets of 4, in litho by Walsall, and issued on the date the rate came into force, 2 October 1989.  These litho printings are quite distinctive, not least because the stamps have two phosphor bands and the booklet pane is imperforate on three sides.  These (SG X1054) should not be difficult to find.

Although these booklets were available from most post offices they were also sold by tourist destinations in addition to the domestic rate booklets.  Having one worldwide rate meant that they only had one airmail booklet to stock.   

The booklet was reprinted on phosphor paper and issued on 17 April 1990 with imperforate edges as before (SG X1055).  This is probably more difficult to find due to its shorter usage period.

From 17 September 1990 the 29p stamp paid the under 10gr airmail rate for Printed Papers to Zones A and B (basically the whole world outside Europe excluding Australasia and the far east of Asia.  I suspect these are much more difficult to find.

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Mike's other piece is pre-decimal, a 1970 letter also to Australia, bearing the rarely seen 2 x 10d stone stamps, SG 741.  The potential problem here is that 2 x 10d = 1s 8d, and the correct rate was 1s 9d. evidently the Post Office didn't take the time to surcharge this international item for 1d, but they were not slow to do so for domestic mail.

Pair of 10d drab stamps on Airmail letter to Australia, May 1970, underpaying the 1s 9d rate by 1d.

The question which will never be answered is why were the 10d stamps used at all?  I don't think it was because the writer used them for an 8 ounce inland letter in July1968 when issued, or for a 10 ounce second class letter after the introduction of two-tier post from 16 September 1968. 

Much more likely is that they had some for sending airmail postcards to Australia, as 10d was the rate from 3 October 1966 to decimalisation on 15 February 1971. 

Or perhaps the sender was a collector, using a variety of stamps on different letters?  Whatever the circumstances they got the rate wrong! 

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Speical Delivery, Registration, the 10d drab, and use-up time!

My thanks to MC for providing three more images of covers in his collection, each of them with something special about it.

The first is a Special Delivery cover from Ilkeston in Derbyshire to North Ferriby in Yorkshire in 1968.  In those days Special Delivery meant Special - not like today where it combines Registration with a timed next-day delivery service.

According to the Great Britain Philatelic Society website:

"Under this Service Letters and Parcels are forwarded by Mail in the regular course of post to any Express Delivery Office in the Kingdom, and on arrival there are sent out for delivery by Special Messenger."

The term Express being replaced by Special in 1938.

 

The fee for Special Delivery was 3s (shillings), paid here by the pair of 1/6d stamps.   Back in the day, it was quite likely that the first delivery to this company was so early that no special effort was required by the delivery office and this accompanied the first normal delivery.

Postage is paid by the 10d drab/stone definitive, for the fourth step, 6 - 8 ounces.  Unfortunately this is only a part-front, but for very large packets that is often the case.

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Second is a registered airmail cover also using the 10d drab, this time x 3 with additional 9d green & 2d brown definitives.  This makes a total of 3s5d. 

Although this is an airmail envelope, it was not sent by airmail, as RAF Rissington is in Gloucestershire.  I suspect the serviceman sending his insurance premium to Royal Insurance had these envelopes left over from a recent overseas posting and saw no reason not to use them.

The postmark is LITTLE RISSINGTON RAF / CHELTENHAM GLOS although the text is so crammed into the space that if it was incomplete you might read it as 'RAF SO'.  The 1st class letter rate was 5d for the first 4 ounces. and 9d for 4-6 ounces, with the basic registration fee of 3s. Although there were higher registration fees, none would make the rate except the maximum of 3s9d with no postage paid!

UPDATE: oh, the shame of it. No excuse, but it took an American to point out my error (thanks Gary). I mis-read my notes of the fees, and copied that to the total postage.  The postage on this is only 3/5d, so basic letter rate plus basic registration.

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The final cover is registered airmail, this time to Canada, from London.  In fact from Trafalgar Square B.O. in London.  And by the type of envelope I would suggest it was sent by Stanley Gibbons or possibly one of the many other stamp dealers in The Strand area.  The giveaway is the mixed pre- and post-decimal day definitives including the 8d red which was replaced by the blue in January 1969 just six months after it was issued.   The date on this item is January 1972.

There are 10 x 8d red definitives, = 80d = 6/8d = 33½p.  With the 1½p stamp making a total of 35p, this covers the 20p registration fee and 15p postage for the second step 1 ounce rate.

In discussions about whether a cover is commercial or (blatantly) philatelic, this falls between the two.  It is clearly commercial if it is a dealer sending stamps to a customer.  The stamps are 'out of time' in that their usage is three years after they ceased to be sold at the post office.

But a month later they would have been truly 'out of time' and invalidated for postal purposes, so it made sense for the sender to use up what were probably large stocks of a stamp which most collectors at the time already had from when it was first issued.

So it is a mixed franking, commercial, 'just-in-time' cover, and a good example to have in a collection if only to tell the story of how, within weeks, the stamps could not have been used.


There's much more to come, but for now, that's all on the Machin front.

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Postcards are a good source of solo uses.

The postcard pictured was drawn to my attention when it recently sold on online auction site eBay.

The rate to Zone C (which includes Australia) from 3 October 19966 to 15 February 1971 was 10d, so this is a good and not easy to find solo usage of the 10d Machin.  Not easy to find in Britain, but maybe easier in the pacific area?  So how did it fare?

My apologies that this image is no longer available. I hosted it on ingur, and I don't know why it was linked there rather than uploading to blogger as usual. I can't at present find a copy on my computer.

It's not perfect with a few rust spots around the stamp and airmail label, but otherwise quite good for a postcard.  From a starting price of £5, it remained at a low level until a bidder came up and tipped it through to £20-ish.  That bidder seems to have dropped out, being outbid by the early bid of £100.  But even that was not enough as a late (snipe?) bid for £102 won the day.  The seller is located in the UK; bidding is hidden, so we cannot tell where the buyer was.

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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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