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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Registered Postal Stationery Envelopes and labels (or not)

This is a subject that I may well make into an online display, since I already have many pages which I have shown to our local club.  

Whilst the pre-war rates were interesting, and foreign usage especially ripe for various combinations of adhesives depending on weight and insured value, one of the best periods is the 1970s, as I am of the opinion - until proved otherwise - that many of the envelopes used in that period of rapid inflation in postal rates, were never used at post offices without the addition of adhesives because the rate had increased before they could use them.

And in some cases, uprated stock was further uprated, especially in 1975 when the postage rates increased twice.   But that's for later. 

Tonight I'm showing an ordinary registered stationery envelope sent by a reader (RW).  It's a basic 23p envelope, officially uprated by ½p when the letter rate increased.  First issued in 1971 the 23p covered the 20p registration fee and 3p 1st class letter rate.  On 10 September 1973 the letter rate increased to 3½p hence the addition.  That rate lasted until June 1974.

The letter was posted from Yeovil to a holiday camp in Paignton, presumably containing a deposit in banknotes for a holiday booking - not everybody had a bank account, and cash payments were common 50 years ago.

The Goldcroft sub-postoffice used registration labels captioned Yeovil, with the branch identification the numeral 5*.  But apparently Goldcroft's supply of labels had been exhausted and not replenished (hard to believe), or lost!  So the postmaster improvised in manuscript, and recorded the letter in the ledger as usual.

     

Fifty years ago, while many people rescued the mail from their office, few kept the envelopes intact - they did it mainly to collect the stamps.

* More about this on the Somerset Postal History Blog.

We don't know how long this situation at Goldcroft lasted, nor how many registered letters were sent.  But what we do have is a rescued cover with a story behind it.  Whilst manuscript registration 'labels' are relatively common in many African countries and some islands in the West Indies, this is the first I have seen in the UK.

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Huge Special Delivery cover and small printed papers

As part of my de-cluttering exercise in Norvic Towers I've been emptying the attic.  Not the best place to store stamps or postal history, and of course I don't.  Which doesn't mean that I don't find things there!


Special Delivery.
 
When my wife and I received this stamps were the last thing on my mind - it contained a card for our wedding!   At that time I still thought postal history was something that the grey-haired old men exhibited at major shows and won medals for.  I collected stamps, but although I liked my Saudi Arabia and Scandinavian stamps on cover those are other stories, and I wasn't too concerned about GB.  So it was put away with a lot of other cards etc and memorabilia from the time.

From early September 1976 this is prepaid at 78½p for the inland Special Delivery rate. 

According to the very excellent GBPS website the SD fee was 60p from 29 September 1975 to 19 August 1979.  Postage is 18½p which represents the 4th step, or 151-200g First Class from 7 June 1976 to 12 June 1977.

Only when you see the whole thing, do you appreciate that the weight - for a massive greetings card in cardboard sleeve - was probably correct:

It's approximately 20 x 14 inches (520 x 370mm).  It's fair to say that my late aunt and uncle were quite extravagant and making a point.

You will notice that I have taken a liberty with the Special Delivery label!  The cover was badly foxed, damaged, and far too big to store or show sensibly, so I cut it down.  We know it was posted from Essex to Somerset, and even though one of the 20p stamps is damaged, it is still a good piece to have.

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OHMS Newspaper Wrappers

The second half of today's post is illustrated by two newspaper wrappers sent (one at least in 1968) from Edinburgh to Germany, both paying the lowest (2 ounce) printed paper reduced rate of 2d.

My thanks to MC for allowing me to show these gems - I'm really quite envious of a 2d rate, and of the ½d block used on their own.

One is stamped with a 2d Machin definitive and the other with a block of 4 x ½d Machins.

What is especially interesting for me is the original source of these. Although attributed by the return address to the Registrar-General in Edinburgh, the wrappers - sent to the Federal German Ministry of Health - originated at Her Majesty's Stationery Office printing works in Annandale Street, Edinburgh - the site has since been redeveloped.

I can tell this by the H M / S O perfins - perforated initials in the stamps:

Under the 2d stamp is the Official Paid mark, which wasn't valid for sending outside the UK, so stamps were used.  Two copies of (I suppose) a Bulletin from the Registrar, were sent in each wrapper.  (2 CPS - CPS may well refer to the title but I don't know what it is.).

The HMSO in-house perfin machine was set up long before the Machins were issued - at least as early as 1949.  The machine possibly had two settings; one was for small definitives - sheets of 12 columns across.  The other was for large definitives, possibly the Wilding Castles.   So on the decimal low value Machins - only 10 columns across - the sheet margins were also perforated.  But the high value Machins were also used, mainly on overseas parcels of books or other publications.  In this case the sheets were folded in half vertically along the gutter, so not only is the gutter perfinned, but the stamps on one side are perfinned normally, and on the other side they are reversed, which makes an interesting pair.

 

  

Although I did have some of these I have passed them on to somebody who will appreciated them more - although I have kept a couple of covers.

If you collect perfins, you can still find these occasionally in dealers' 'back of the book' stock, and look out also for their predecessors from 1922-1949. This design mimicked the watermark widely used in security printing, and also appeared on many of the stationery and office equipment items, such as rulers.  Unfortunately the authorities pointed out that use of the Crown on the stamps was not permitted, so the design was changed.  

The Board of Trade also fell foul of this ruling but that department didn't use any alternative.

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Insured letter puzzle - 1989 to Germany

I promised that I would be doing so more on this blog soon, and I'm starting by showing a puzzle sent to me by a reader, MC.

Royal Mail introduced registered envelopes in 1878 and the last produced that showed a value was in 1984.  From 1986 envelopes with NVI indicia were issued, in two main sizes, G H and K, but within these first two there were 5 different variants!  And that was only the first NVI design as shown below.

Sent from Edinburgh to Germany on 13 November 1989.  This is prepaid for the minimum postage and registration fee within the UK, but between 1986 and 1998 there was also a concessionary reduced minimum rate for EEC destinations, equal to the basic first class inland letter rate. It applied to all-up mail to 1991 and airmail thereafter.  This means that no extra postage was necessary on this letter to Germany, provided it was under 60 g in weight.

But what about the insurance?  According to the GBPS website postage rate pages (open free to non-members) the fee for insurance over £150 and up to £300 was £1.80 - yet there is no sign of any extra postage.

It beats me how letters which must be handed over the counter at a Post Office ever get processed with insufficient postage.

I don't have any ideas - other than the obvious one that somebody made a mistake - there's no obvious sign of missing stamps.

Does anybody else have any idea?

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Common stamps - but what were they used for?

The first set of Machin definitives included an 8d in red (or bright vermillion) issued on 1 July 1968. This was just one of the range from ½d to 1/9d replacing the Wilding definitives started in 1952.

But with the 4d brown difficult to process, that value was changed to red, and the 8d to pale blue (light turquoise-blue) on 6 January 1969.  But was there a specific purpose to this value, both colours of which are not at all uncommon in either mint or used condition?

According to British Postal Rates 1937-2000 (Johnson & Peet) the uses at the time of issue of the 8d red were:

Inland Letter 4 - 6 ounces (until 15 September 1968)
Inland Printed Papers 8 to 10 ounces (until  5 January 1969)
Foreign Printed Papers Surface 8 to 10 ounces (to 31 August 1968)
Foreign Samples Surface 4 to 6 ounces (to 31 August 1968)
Foreign Newspaper airmail Group B destinations ½ to 1 ounce and 2nd class airmail group C up to ½ ounce (both to 5 January 1969)

The specific uses of the 8d pale blue all ran from 6 January 1969 to 14 February 1971:

Inland letter 2nd class 6 to 8 ounces, and printed papers 8 to 10 ounces
Foreign Surface Printed Papers 4 to 6 ounces and Samples 6 to 8 ounces
Foreign Airmail 2nd Newspapers Group B ½ to 1 ounce and 2nd class Group C up to ½ ounce.

So, how how easy is it to find any examples of these uses on full cover or wrapper today?  Well, I would suggest very difficult.  Newspaper wrappers are usually discarded, bulk printed paper envelopes or packaging are rarely 'attractive' (or small) enough for people to have collected in the past, and of course collectors in foreign destinations would (at that time) want the stamps for the collections.

So although the red had been replaced by the time of the use shown here, it is still scarce enough, and attractive enough to be worthy of including in a postal history usage collection.  These two Printed Paper usages from Norwich to Australia, the red on 26 February and the blue on 20 November 1969 sold fifty years later on eBay for AU$65.99 - £35.50 at present.

But I'm not actually certain what postage rate they were paying, given the above tables!

Another aspect of Postal History collecting is the inclusion of at least the name and address of the recipient (and maybe the sender), and sometimes content.  From these pictures we can establish the background of the addressee:

Austine Marshall

Another outstanding lady [amateur radio] operator was Austine Henry (nee Marshall), VK3YL, first licenced in 1930. In many ways, Austine had similarities with Florence. She constructed her own transmitters, for which she won prizes and was a keen operator who was deeply respected by other amateurs.

In 1934 Austine joined the R.A.A.F. Reserve and during WWII, went on to train many operators in Morse code at the WIA during WWII.

Postal History collectors - certainly the purchaser of this pair - should be grateful that Mrs Henry kept the envelopes in which, presumably, she received QSL cards (confirmation of radio contact from other radio amateurs.\

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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?

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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Odd-looking postal rates are likely to be right!

Most people can recognise an obviously philatelic cover, with excess postage or out-of-period (albeit valid) usage.  The logical conclusion of this is that most people can also recognise a cover which is properly stamped at a proper rate using stamps available at the time.

Sometimes, however, you find a cover with a postage rate that almost has to be right, because nobody would make it that wrong!

Here are three pieces which I picked up at London's Spring Stampex.  The first is a surface-mail picture postcard from Newquay, Cornwall, to South Carolina on 13 September 1968.  Stamped with a 5d blue Machin definitive (SG 735) it doesn't look odd, because we are used to seeing so many inland letters and cards with this stamp from 1968-71.  But that rate took effect later, from 16 September.

The 5d rate for surface postcards worldwide ran from 3.10.1966 to decimal day (15.2.71).  The Machin stamp was issued on 1.7.1968.  So although the 5d Machin on a postcard in this period is not unusual, it is interesting to see it used before it served the same purpose on inland mail.

The second is a small (125 x 80 mm) unsealed envelope containing a card.  This was sent from Romford, Essex, to South Carolina on 8 November 1983 with 14½p postage paid by a 12½p and 2p Machin definitives.  An unusual rate, but by the unusual combination of stamps, I deduced that it was probably 'right'.  And so it proved.  This is the first step (20 g) Printed Paper Rate for letters worldwide.

Lastly, an airmail letter from Carmarthen to South Carolina on 7 February 1979, prepaid at 18½p.  Now I was used to seeing 10½p, 11½p, 13½p, 19½p and 20½p stamps on postcards - and there are stamps for all of these rates, but not for 18½p - so is it correct?  Again, the answer is yes.   This is the second-step 20 g rate for Zone 2 letters (the first step was 11p).  So although the 13p dog stamp is used on its day of issue, the addition of the 5p and ½p stamps to make up the 18½p rate is perfectly right.

So although it happens to be a first day cover - and indeed it may have been used deliberately on the day of issue - it's a perfectly correct non-philatelic cover.

I think if you went to a dozen dealers looking for these last two, you probably wouldn't find anything at those rates, even with other stamps to make up the rates.

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