Worldwide Postage Due Scans

Bamra, if that's your stupid, I'd hate to get in your way when you're brilliant!
I didn't even notice the cancels on the postage dues. Your are right, they were canceled elsewhere (New York obviously) and stuck on this piece after the fact.
Goes to show, you never know what you'll find.

Here beginneth the second lesson, and the topic this week is provisional postage dues in SHS/Yugoslavia.

Yugoslav post offices frequently ran out of Postage Dues. This is NOT because Slavs were especially prone to understamping correspondence; nor was it that Postage Dues were produced only in small numbers. The problem was that so many of them were used for payment of a variety of other Post Office fees such as parcel storage, Value Declared fees, poundage (dinarage?) on Postal Orders, and fees for postal receipts. This is an example of a usage on the back of a Postal Order:

So periodically, whether on a local or a national level, they ran low on Postage Dues and solved the problem temporarily by using overprints to create provisional postage dues. Three sets of these are well known to everyone, being listed in Gibbons and other standard catalogues:
On Bosnian issues

On Slovenian issues

On SHS national issues

What is far more controversial is the handstamping of Porto or P by local postmasters:


These are not listed by Gibbons and Gibbocentric collectors persistently poo-poo these issues and tell everyone who will listen that we should have nothing to do with them because they are all fantasies aimed at milking philatelists. That some of them were sold on covers to philatelists, and quite possibly to dealers as well, is undeniably true. This one for example:

But exactly the same would be true of the bulk of modern FDCs. In fact I have no doubt that many of the provisionals did genuine postal service. Let's use this as an example:

Before the end of World War 1 an Austrian Government Office in Marburg an der Drau (soon to become Maribor in Slovenia) distributes Portofreie envelopes to carry replies to their correspondence. Shortly after the end of the war one of the recipients of this largesse attempts to use it. He initials it lightly in the bottom left corner and posts it. However, the newly independent SHS Post Office sees no reason why they should be deprived of income through documents issued by the erstwhile enemy, and slap 20v+20v worth of provisional handstamped Postage Dues on it. This is a perfectly reasonable and definitely non-philatelic usage.
Also the 'T' (=Taxe) handstamp was sometimes used on a stamp to create a postage due, rather than being applied to the cover to warn the receiving office of an underpayment:

Although again these were also used to create philatelic covers (13 vinar postage due would imply a postal rate of 6.5 Vinar which never existed; nor, come to that, did half Vinars!):

While on the subject of these, similar overprints were used on prewar Montenegrin stamps. I have grave doubt's as to whether these were ever genuinely used; but if anyone has seen them used on cover, please upload a scan:

Equally controversial is the use of captured Postage Dues in areas of Hungary which were occupied by Serbian forces at the end of WW1:

Again they are usually condemned as purely philatelic. In this case I suspect that their overprinting was more a political gesture to establish a claim to the area, than anything philatelic.
On the other hand (to show that I don't fall for everything!) I have no confidence at all in the genuineness of either of these - but again I would welcome correction:
Slovenian issues:

Slovenian provisional Porto issue additionally handstamped Bosna (not required since Slovenian issues were automatically valid for use in Bosnia):

And just to finish off - the great irony given the postage due shortage: postage dues overprinted Franco as provisional postals!

What I know about the postage dues of Yugoslavia could fit on the back of one...a bisect, at that. And most of that knowledge came from this thread.

So, for the sake of discussion, only, is there anything about the Portofreie cover (a backstamp, say) that indicates that it passed through the mails, as opposed to being a handback or other favor cancel?

It just smells a little philatelic (not that there's anything wrong with that).

I assume you have more, 'cuz you promised it would be boring, and it's not boring yet...

An interesting question. There is no backstamp. But of course it's not a BACKstamp that's 'missing'. Backstamps were only ever applied by the receiving office. In the case of an understamped item the receiving office was required to affix the postage dues to the FRONT of the item and cancel them with the receiving office hand cancels. They would never then backstamp as well.

So what appears to be missing is the stamp of the FORWARDING office who should have at the very least applied their cancel to the front, and probably added a manuscript or handstamped T, or some other comment to draw to the attention of the receiving office that the Freepost was not acceptable and Postage Due needed to be paid.

That didn't happen. But in my opinion there is a very good reason why it didn't - because it was local mail and so the forwarding and receiving offices were one and the same. I can't completely prove this because the local postage rate concession in the area was abolished before the end of the war, so the postal rate would be the same whether it was local or not. But what I can tell you is that there were only two post offices in Maribor, so if it was local mail there was at least a 50:50 chance of the office that had emptied the mail box also being the office responsible for delivering the item.

I think however the crucial point against the cover being philatelic or by favour is the address on it. I've often seen philatelic mail with no address, I've seen it often with the address of a dealer/agent or an individual; but I think you'd be hard put to find a philatelic example addressed to a Military Welfare Office, as this one is.

Also the date is unreadable due to the cancel being underinked; although hardly conclusive, I think this also makes it less likely that it is philatelic, since more care tends to be taken with such details when cancelling by favour.

Just saw this topic on the board and had to recycle a "Postage Due"
item from my collection. On close examination, it appears that the
amount of Postage Due (3 Cents) was added over the printed, "Postage
Due 3 Cents" and then was cancelled separately? I can't really tell
whether the stamp was precancelled, then affixed, or vice versa.

Here is a postage due cover I have...

Okay, the local-mail aspect could explain the lack of other markings.

Wouldn't a busy clerk tag it with a block of four tens?

Ooooh. Good one. That hurts.
It's 2.30 in the morning here, so if there IS an answer to that my brain isn't going to find it until I've had a sleep!

No, wait. I've got one. At the time the 5, 10 and 25 were all available, so were the 3 and the 15 at least. These are also known overprinted Porto. So if you are a stamp collector wanting a cover, why on earth would you insist on having the correct rate made up? Why don't you just ask for the full set, so you'll be the envy of all your philatelic friends?

Good point...all the best philatelic covers have full sets.

Maybe the guy in the back was still getting around to stamping up some 3's and 15's when our collector showed up?

I find this rather interesting.

Presumably our (probably American) friend on holiday in France and Monaco intended to send a surface mail postcard to USA for 90 centimes. The French and Monegasque francs were at parity (and presumably the postal rates too?); but he uses a French stamp and posts it in Monte Carlo which the Monaco post office refuses to countenance. They add the T in triangle mark which the Dam' Yankees have almost completely hidden. It arrives in the US as effectively unstamped and the doubled rate is 6 cents US. Which means that the exchange rate at the time must have been 1$ to 30 Francs. I'd never thought of it as being that high. (Presuming I'm right. Correct me if I'm not).

And THAT's why I'm a Postage Due fanatic! You learn so much more from them than you do when people annoyingly get the postage right.

Starting October 1, 1925, the U.S. rate for international postcards increased to 3 cents. Might they have just been taxing based on what they knew their own rate to be?

Probably, yes. But since it's before 1948 don't the UPU regulations state that reciprocal rates should be approximately the same? So my point about the exchange rate should not be affected.

By the way, cjd, can I just put on record how nice it is to have a stamp conversation about How and Why, and not What's It Worth?

Agreed.

For what its worth, here is a graph showing the decline in value of the old franc from 1907 to 1959:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F...907-1959.png

Here is what Wikipedia says about the French franc around the time of World War I and following:




Can you make anything out of that?