Postage Meter - Missing Date/Time

Hi guys...Got lots of these cut outs I did when I was a kid ( wish I didn't ) but what is missing is a date stamp and a time stamp...Is this normal..?

Robert





and one more...

bulk rates meter date & time normally deleted from indicia (???)

These are private postal meter stamps from back in the day when the basic first class rate was 4c (approx. 1958-1963 or so). As such I don't think they were specifically for bulk rate mail, however, the absence of a datestamp might be the tipoff here since that was how certain "discount" classes of mail (eg drop mail, and third class) had been handled already in the 1880s. There are now some people who collect these private, machine made postage labels, and they could tell you exactly what you have. I know the lower one is from a Pitney-Bowes machine. The T-N I do not recognize.

There was also a time when a "stamped" return envelope was enclosed with a mailing. Companies often pre-stamped the mail (with a meter) but deleted the date so it could be used for the return envelope. I'm not sure how it meets with postal regulations today, but at the time it was probably acceptable.

I should mention that the top meter example (circa 1962) from a T-N meter is relatively unique (Type J2 in the International Postage Meter Stamp Catalog). "T-N" stood for "Tele-Norm".

Today it would be known today as FP Mailing Solutions, before that Francotyp-Postalia, before that Postalia, and before that Tele-Norm, a West German company who first entered the US postage meter market in 1962. Considering postage rates changed to 5-cents in January 1963, the use of a 4-cent rate on a T-N meter is relatively scarce I would imagine.

You may also find this period newspaper article interesting:

interesting wt1...Thanks.

Guess I will put my T-N on ebay for $1,ooo,ooo.oo or so...haha
Robert

Here's another curious thing: The only reference I can find in the Postal Bulletin is from 1960 when the Tele-Norm Postage Meter was approved with limited use in New York City and Westchester County. Given that the T-N meter example shown above is from Los Angeles, I would presume approval went nationwide at a later date -- probably in 1962 when the previously posted newspaper article was released.

Check this out..half way down..there were other cities using the same cancel..not just mine or New York...But they had time/date stamp.



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

Another tidbit of information taken from the Meter Stamp Society Newsletter of 1990:

T-N/Postalia meters are not particularly common in the US. Here are 3 from Indianapolis cropped from legal sized envelopes.



For the rates on your 2 clipped copies.
Aug 1, 1958 - Jan 6, 1963 the first class letter rate was .04 which outgoing metered mail would have needed a date, or the uncommon undated return imprint which wt1 mentioned above (which almost always gets a cancel since it was typically handled with the stamped mail), so it is very unlikely yours are either of these pre 1963 uses.

Jan 7 1963 - Jan 6, 1967 the first class letter rate was .05 and the single piece 3rd class mail rate was .04, mailed with an undated meter. So I believe your undated examples fit this 3rd class use and time period.

Here are specimen imprints from Postalia showing a different design.

The third class mail rate (1963-67) makes sense for the indicia shown in the original post.

For anyone interested, I kept this clipping from a 2001 Linn's Stamp News article about postage meters in general. It is quite interesting to see just how few meters (other than Pitney Bowes) were in operation in the US.

If possible, we should change (or at least adjust) the title of this thread for easier future searches. Perhaps "Postage Meter - Missing Date/Time?"

Changed the title..Thanks wt1..your wish is my command...

so rarity as shown by wt1 article shows..
Pitney-bowes - least rare
Singer - rare
Postalia - very rare
NCR - extremely rare



Very interesting...Guess it is common to see a T-N meter missing the date and time then...oh well...Thought I had some thing even a bit rare..haha

I wouldn't exactly call any of the postage meter indicias "rare", "very rare", etc. There were millions (if not billions) of imprints from machines produced by each of these vendors for many, many years, so there are still many out there.

Value is a relative factor, as there is only a very small group of dedicated stamp collectors that have interest in meters. Some collectors reject them altogether, which is why some of the older ones have been discarded and are less common than the "industry standard" Pitney Bowes examples.

Personally, I don't have any from Singer or NCR, but I do have several from CC (Commerical Controls Corporation) and their predecessor NPM (National Postal Meter). I find these interesting not only because of the unique imprint but the relatively low (4 digit) postage meter numbers, confirming that relatively few of them were put into operation as compared with their competitors.

Here are some images. Although I don't have any information to confirm or deny it, I think the 1965 indicia of a CC meter is a rather late usage, as most of them would have been retired and replaced by that time, or so I would think:

Eligies was correct. Time/Date stamps were not use for bulk-rate mailing with meters much the same as they were missing from cancels used to cancel such mail.

To Wert's question of rarity, Singer is at best scarce. Postalia is common for the most part with a couple being scarce. NCR is scarce to very rare.

just a further comment: USPOD regulations required all first class meter mail to carry a date. Any other class of mail could be mailed w/o the dated meter. The reasoning was for issues with delivery recording of when mailed & when received for quality control (& possible bottleneck determination in processing). The only first class mail which did not need the date in a metered piece was the return envelope provided by the correspondent for information requested. They would then provide an addressed envelope with their own return address. I want to believe that this mailing method was a precursor to the business reply permit envelope. Also, large bulk mailings were dated on a form (PS3602???//PS3206???) with date & name of permit holder. They were verified at the larger processing plants for correct character (advertising, periodical, non-profit etc.) and could be metered or stamped. Metered mails were counted & postage determined and deducted from their account. Since the stamped mail had postage paid, all that needed to be verified was that the proper bulk rate stamp was applied for the mail piece. (but I could be wrong )