That "POSTAGE DUE 3 Cents" looks to have been typed by the addressor ... how weird is that?
Was the 'penalty' text crossed-out? It does not look like it ...
As to the manuscripted "12c", my best guess is that there were other postage due items - perhaps even Business Reply Mail - and they were bundled by a postal clerk, who put the total on the top piece.
This is/was standard practice for BRM, which makes for some pretty astonishing covers.
For the much larger customers - eg, trays of BRM - there is an accounting sheet that caught all of those postage due stamps and/or meter imprints.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey (who would reverse the cover in the sleeve, so as to protect the good bits)
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 300 categories 26 Nov 2018 10:00:08pm
re: Postage rate
Here is the other way of handling postage due on business reply mail. A two page postage due bill with $240 postage due stamps affixed (those are all $5 postage due stamps!)
Roy
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 300 categories 27 Nov 2018 07:39:06pm
re: Postage rate
That's not "extra postage due".
The surface rate at this time was 2 1/2d for the first ounce. The next ounce was another 1d. It looks like the sender thought that paying double the surface rate was sufficient for airmail, but the airmail rate for 1 oz was 1 shilling (12d), resulting in a 7d shortfall.
The postage due rules at the time were quite complex, involving the equivalent airmail rate from the US to Britain (I have seen these on the internet in the past, but don't have time to find them right now).
Accordingly, I believe this is the usual "double charge" for an airmail deficiency.
Roy
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BuckaCover.com - 80,000 covers priced 60c to $1.50 - Easy browsing 300 categories 06 Dec 2018 10:07:28am
re: Postage rate
Actually, now that I look at it again, the "1/2" marking probably indicates 1 shilling 2d (1'2) or 14 pence, which is exactly double the short paid amount. This was translated to US$0.23 which implies an exchange rate of £1 = US$3.95, which was about right for the time.
Roy
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Here is an example from an exhibit I had a few years ago. this postcard has $342.82 worth of postage!
This is the company I used to work for and they used Business Reply Mail to help evaluate the service technicians. The techs left a card like this with the customer after a service call.
Back in the late 1970s I worked for a large home builder and was responsible for the mail. They'd send out huge mailings to consumers with a response card to get a free catalog. We'd get back 1,000s of responses!
This was past the date when they used postage due stamps on printed sheets. They wanted to just print a register receipt and cancel it with a registry dot. I looked it up and regulations said I could pay postage due with mint postage stamps, by having them cancelled. And they'd be returned to me as my receipt.
At first the postal workers balked, but after a conversation with the postmaster, that became our way of doing business. After a mailing, on a normal day, I'd get to cancel a few sheets of current commemoratives. But my jewel is a complete sheet of the then current $1 stamp. I still have it.
I send back all the business reply envelopes and post cards that I get in junk mail that do not have my name and address. Sometimes I even put competitor ads in the reply envelope to add more weight. I figure that's one way to help the post office get more money!
Dialysis, damned if you do...dead if you don't 07 Dec 2018 04:13:57am
re: Postage rate
In the 1970 Abbie Hoffman "Steal This Book", he advocated taping bricks to return reply cards as a form of civil disobedience against 'The Man'. People did this for a few months before the USPS developed policies for handling the situation (they stopped forwarding heavy objects back to the sender and charging them postage due).
Don
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy.. 09 Dec 2018 04:11:58am
re: Postage rate
" ... that I get in junk mail that
do not have my name and address. ..."
Shucks, Michael, I use my address stamp
on such things so they know who sent it
back to them, and with some other
advertising inside. I did get an inquiry
once or twice as to why, and I politely
sent back a note saying I thought they
might be in the market for whatever I
had included and thrilled to get the
unsolicited advertisement and an envelope
to reply to whatever company it was.
Of course, unless they included a paid return
envelope, I would forgetfully short pay the
postage by a penny or two, (back when the
rates were 5¢ or 10¢ ), and about a penny
or two more in recent years. Enough that
the envelopes seem to have been sent
forward, postage due.
When I do not want to be known, I still
have the address stamp from the business
I sold about forty years ago. The building
was knocked down and an multi business
office building, replaces it, so any response
should be returned to the sender, as well.
This is war man, have some fun.
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