Odd Looking Pitney Bowes Meter

I got this odd looking Pitney Bowes meter today on a piece of mail. I have either never seen it before or just never took notice of it before. It's really sort of drab looking as it's all grey-scale.

Very common. Sometimes these meter imprints change solely when a different model type meter is put into place. Here's an example similar to yours (but for a different mailing rate):



I agree, the gray coloring is quite boring/unattractive looking.

It's similar but it is different besides rate. The one on my post shows a day "slug" ours just a year and month. Also a slightly different font on "US POSTAGE". Maybe it's just because the ink is darker on mine I'm not sure as it could just be a scanner thing? -Jay




EDIT:
Also I know just about nothing about the newer meters. So that was all based merely on my fast observation.

There are a few varieties of this style of postage meter, depending on the presence/absence of "PITNEY BOWES", the size and shape of the bar code and the color. I use the on-line International Postage Meter Stamp Catalog to catalog my postage meter collection:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Intern...tamp_Catalog

Cheers, Robert

Just received these in this afternoon's mail. The sender was the agency that oversees Medicare claims for my Mom. The indicia is from the same meter as noted on the bottom meter number ... so they are quite common:



A curious thing when studying these two examples: The number below the ZIP Code one would assume would be a count number as to the number of pieces that went through the meter, but in this case the first one (#306) is dated December 29, 2011 and the second one (#307) is dated December 30, 2011.

maybe 306 was the last piece of mail to go through the meter on the 29th and the 307 was the first of the next day. Like they quit work halfway though a stack LOL

maybe that's the machine number or maybe the permit number wt1?

I've narrowed it down a bit. The black indicia from Pitney Bowes is part of the Infinity Series High Volume Mailing Machine line.

Here's an excerpt from the manufacturer's brochure:



While this is a much older example (with different numbering system) the basic indicia is quite similar so it has been use in one form or another since at least 2008, according to this Meter Stamp Society excerpt:

So it's an ID number.