Why The Fractional Cents In The Transportation Series?

Hi!
In advancing my US collection from 1977 to 1999, I've filled out the transportation series (81-87, 86-88). What surprised me was the many stamps with fractional denominations.

I "assume" some met specific needs for various mass mailers, but why didn't they just use "mailing machine" strips?

Does anyone have the background on why these were issued?

Thank you!
Mobilman44

They were applied by in-line machine stamp applicators at commercial mailshops.

the Class Rates & Piece Requirements were:









The advertising piece was produced by a Lettershop in conjunction with the USPS.

As a Direct Mail Marketing Ad Group, we constantly relied on Lettershops/Mailshops to provide Mailing Matrix's like these, to devise direct mail advertising campaigns (junk mail) with live stamps to homes and businesses to guide us through the morass of fractional postage rates.

Postage Rates are basically created and approved by Congress -- need I say more!!
Hal

Hi Mobilman. Great question, and not easily answered. Most, if not all mass-mailers insist on using stamps on their mail. Research has shown that the public ( read "us" ) is more apt to open a letter when it has an attractive stamp on it. And by the way, it was not just the Transportation Coils that had a lot of "fractionals"; they had been in use long before 1981!

Peter

I should add, the fractional rate was the "Discount provided to the mailer for doing the sortation and the application of bar-coding to the mail to speed automated mail processing.

The finer the sort: SCF (3-digit), 5-Digit, Zip+4, Zip+4+Carrier Route, equals a better discount. When you're a direct mail marketer doing 5-10+million piece mailings each month; the finer/better the sort equals tens-of-thousands of dollars of saved postage.

Hal