I've been reading a lot of the material about US precancels and they have got my interest. I bought a few recently in Australia from a seller. My question is this. Are some US precancels more likely to be encountered in overseas mail (such as Australia) that in local (US) mail because of prices to send mail overseas?
Stevie, I would guess LESS likely. Most low denomination precancels were used by small local mailers or big mass mailers - churches, businesses, governments on their junk mail and bills [meters and permit mail was less prevalent]. Most high denominations on parcels from businesses [USPO had a monopoly on deliveries - no FEDEX etc]. They were not generally used on personal correspondence - like to relatives overseas.
Thanks Chasa. That makes a lot of sense. I'm still trying to get my head around what is the equivalent in Australia (if any) to precancels. Is it perfins? Stephen.
Actually, perfins are another ball game really. They were originally designed to prevent theft by company employees, and, most perfins from any given company can be found on different face values, high and low. They are found on letters and parcels alike.
My understanding about precancels is that in order to qualify using them for cheaper rates, they had to guarantee the post offices a particular value to be used over a certain time. This was not a requirement with perfin usage.
Bujutsu - Not so much a "guarantee of a particular value" but they had to meet a certain quantity of mailings to get a permit. The value came into play pertaining to the weight of the item mailed. Catalogs had higher values than maybe a church newsletter or one of a million letters mailed stating you have won the lottery in Nigeria.
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