Some Really Small Covers From St Pierre Et Miquelon

Pics included are three stamps scanned at the same resolution and cropped and reduced by the same percentage to give you an idea, in scale, of how small these covers are.

Also scans of a tape measure in inches and metric centimeters.

i am not sure but perhaps these cost less to buy so were OK, using very thin writing paper, to send notes back and forth. Perhaps, weight-wise they also cost less to send?

Because of the size, if you wrote out the address first sometimes you did not leave enough room for the stamp so it was bent over the top or placed on the back.














edit to change photo positioning

Wow those are small - the tiniest looks like 3.5"!

Some more with different stamps used. Many of these envelopes are different sizes. I haven't measured and dated each one yet nut plan to, just out of curiosity.

Another size comparison, one of the smaller covers from St Pierre laid over on top of a regular sized First Day Cover (#6-3/4 envelope I believe) from Canada, scanned and reduced the same as all above scans.

Those are very nice covers Puzzler.

During WW2 in Canada some covers can be seen that have been 're-cycled' because the populace was being encouraged to do so. SPM, being less than 90 miles (130KM) from Newfoundland, was, at that time, considered a French colony as Newfoundland was still a British colony at the time.

My understanding was that during this same time frame and also for a couple of years after WW2 ended, SPM used a lot of these small envelopes to cut down on paper use overall to help in the war effort and preserve paper supplies. Even a couple or so years after the war ended, these envelopes were still seen being used in an attempt to use up all existing supplies. Maybe there is someone in our forum that can elaborate more on this??

Nice thread

Chimo

Bujutsu

Thanks for the information Bujutsu, nice to know, makes sense with all the war rationing etc.

Puzzler....


Very nice little covers....too bad some of the stamps are folded.....I've always liked the French colony stamps.....I'm somewhat surprised there haven't been more posted here......lots of great stamps.

I've seen similar small covers from the US dating from the Civil War period up till about 1965 or so. Most were thank-you notes and invitations.