Official Mail Envelope With Meter

Can anyone explain the purpose of a pre-printed Official Mail envelope having an Official Mail Meter overlay?

I suspect it could be because additional postage was required because of weight exceeeding first 1/2 oz., but it seems unusual, as I would have though the offiical postage paid envelope would have covered it.

Any thoughts?

Postal employee's first day on the job? Someone re-using an envelope (I've been known to do that).

Do you have the rest of the envelope for more clues?

Thanks for the comments. Here's the entire envelope. For the record, it did come from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Further, the meter is not a P.O. meter but an Official Mail meter that would have been generated by a governmental postage meter (i.e. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture).

Nothing major here I know, I just find it to be a curiosity.

I think it is a keeper. But then I like metered mail.

I do, too!

Their are strict guidelines as to when you may or not use "Postage Paid" envelopes. The same goes for "Free Franks". For example a Congressman can send you a document using a "Free Frank". He/She may NOT use it to send you a Birthday Card even if mailed from His/Her Office. A Military Recruiter can send you information about a branch of the service(Gov't. Business), but may not answer questions via the mail without a stamp. There are a lot of rules where these are concerned.

1993... .52c was darned near 2x first class postage.

I would bet there is/was some sort of rule that the envelope only covers
first class postage, so metering was needed for additional weight or other
optional mailing services.

The type of penalty envelope you have is ignored by Scott and most collectors. That's why I collect them.
They were used in the 70's and early 80's but caused accounting problems [color me surprised ] and were replaced with official mail stamps in 1983. Official mail I've seen lately uses meters or permits.
Since the meter is dated 1993, my guess is that there were some old, unused envelopes around and they needed the meter to be valid for current postage.
Dan

Thanks for the comment, danstamps54, it makes the most sense to me, too. Before posting this I went to the USPS web site and reviewed the regulations for Official Mail. That was a mistake! It's more complicated than the IRS with it's tax regulations, and the 70+ pages of Official Mail regulations became quite boring to read through.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the response.