great idea for junk mail

[patrickg]

Bird, I have a small cache of 2 cent post cards. Since you mention "penny" post cards going directly to 3 cents, does that make my 2 cent cards especially colectible due to possibility of real brief period of use?

I also have some IRC's (International Response Coupons) from a couple decades back, left over from my pursuit of QSL (confirmation of radio contact) card quest. I wonder if they would still be honored. If so, what a wonderful hedge on inflation of postal rates.

Caution, explanation of paragraph two's jargon follows. Amature radio operators around the world, and in space as several astronauts and some cosmonauts were/are "ham" radio operators), exchange cards verifying the time, date, freq., mode and certain other techinal details of a communication as well as sometimes sharing personal info. These "hams" sometimes try to collect card to verify that they have WAS (worked all states) WAC (Worked All Continents - yup there are hams in Antarctica). etc. As the cost of postage for less advantaged people living in areas of high demand for cards could become a significant financial burden, these operators would request IRC's to cover the cost of their mailings. Sometimes multiple IRC's were requested in quantities that became bribes to get a rare location logged.

So Bird, did you handle/sell IRC's during your tenure?

Side note on post office stuff.... I sent a letter "return receipt requested" two days later I sent another to a different address/company. At the time of the second sending the post mistress said I got a bargain the first time as she did not send the first letter registered or certified and only charged me the adder. Her mistake, my bargain, i.e. 1/2 price. A week -10 days later and the letter hasn't been routed back nor has the signature card been returned. Some bargain, huh?

Now back to the junk mail topic, briefly. If you stuff a plain envelope (no return address - not postage paid by addressee) with junk and drop it into the mail box without postage, what happens. Do they send it on to the address and collect postage due or does a postal inspector or someone open it and try to determine the origin, trash it, or what?

Expiring minds want to know,

Patrick

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>you mention "penny" post cards going directly to 3 cents</font color=blue>

Sorry, Patrick, I never meant to imply that they went directly from 1 cent to 3 cents, because they didn't. It's just that even after they had gone to 3 cents, customers still walked up to the window and asked for X number of "penny postcards". I don't remember when they went from 1 to 2 cents, but I think that was quite awhile before I started working for the Post Office. I worked as a part time, occasional substitute carrier (just when someone was sick or on vacation) in Plano before I got out of high school. The postmaster had to get regional approval for temporary (3 months at a time) appointment, simply because he couldn't find anyone else who would take the job. I had two 3 month appointments, then when I turned 18, a one year appointment (no civil service exam, background check, etc.). Then when I went to work fulll time, it was in Dallas as a clerk, after taking the civil service exam, getting fingerprinted, and all that business. So I was a clerk in Dallas from March '59 to March '64. I was there when the salary went from $1.84 and hour to $2 an hour./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif So how much do you expect an old man to remember from that far back?/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

As for the IRCs, I don't remember whether I sold any or not, but was quite accustomed to seeing them when sorting mail. Another common postcard was the one made especially for folks playing chess via mail. We had those from all around the world, too.

<font color=blue>got a bargain the first time</font color=blue>

Postal clerks make mistakes, like everyone else./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I don't know how they do it now, but when I was doing it, every clerk who worked a window had his/her own inventory of stamps, cards, envelopes, change, etc. At the end of your shift, you wrote up an order for replacement inventory, included the money, and turned it in (and locked up your inventory in a safe); picked up the new inventory and checked it for accuracy at the beginning of your next shift. You could not keep more than 10% of your inventory in cash for making change. And you knew the Postal Inspector would show up unannounced once each quarter to check your inventory; just never knew when (could be two days in a row if he showed up like March 31 and April 1). You could be off 10% and not penalized, but if you were under more than that, you just handed over the full amount to bring it up, and if you were over more than that, they took it. But if you never made a mistake, you would make a half cent several times a day (remember third class and the half cent rates, and of course you had to collect a whole penny). I was never short, but the only time I know I made a mistake was when stamps went from 4 cents to 5 cents and the first day someone asked for "half a sheet" of stamps (which was quite common) and I gave him a half sheet of 5 cent ones for the 4 cent price (lost 50 cents)./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

<font color=blue>If you stuff a plain envelope (no return address - not postage paid by addressee) with junk and drop it into the mail box without postage</font color=blue>

Again, I can't say for sure today, but way back when . . .. If there was no postage and there was a return address, then it was returned to sender for postage. If there was no return address, it was sent on to the receiver unopened as "postage due." If the receiver refused to pay the postage, then it was sent to the "dead letter office" to be opened to see if there was any identification, valuables, etc.

 

[patrickg]

Bird, Rereading my comments I look like an inquisitor, not my real intention. I "inherited" the 2 cent cards and was curious when they were in vogue if they might be a good collectable. Apparently from your comments,they were before you were first at the Post Office. My comments regarding the Post Mistress were intended literally. Most of the time the only "iinside" person at our post office is the Post Mistress. Pretty small operation. I recall hearing "penny" post card a lot but don't recall personally sending or receiving one.

Patrick

 

[Bird]

The only inside person is the Post Mistress? Same here, and her husband is our rural mail carrier./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

And I think I may still have some penny postcards, but not sure I could find them stored in boxes with some other things. When my granddad died, we found that he had apparently never thrown away any letter, card, or postcard that he had ever received. There were quite a number of letters and postcards from my parents and an aunt when they lived in Baltimore in '41-'43. A penny postcard really was back then.