1922 Australia Masons Postal Card - Postage Due To St Louis Missouri

Tonight, I will share this postal card from my worldwide postal history collection sent from Perth, Australia to Saint Louis, Missouri, USA in 1922. I hope to learn more about it as I share it with you.

There is a T over 30 marking above the address. I think this was applied in Australia, am I correct?

An auxiliary marking "Postage due 6 cents. Seattle Wash." was applied upon arrival in the USA, but the postage due stamps were applied in St Louis.

Three 2-cent precancelled SAINT LOUIS MISSOURI postage due stamps were added in St Louis prior to delivery. Six cents postage seems too much for a post card in 1922, but I guess it must have been the right amount?

As always, comments are welcome,

LInus

Nice post card. The ACSC identifies this as P48 with a printing of 1,032,300, issued in November 1918 and replaced in January 1920 (though later dates of use are known). There are some known without the overprint, but those are very rare. It is also known punctured OS/NSW and cancelled to order. I believe you are correct in your assumptions about the application of the stamps. Nice item that would look good in any collection.

Western Australia Linus (From 1912)
I do not understand the "30" am I to believe this is "centimes" ?

The Postmark is strange also, It is a continuous Machine roller cancel
(apparently sans slogan) that has just caught the postcard on the LHS
(Also from 1912)

A cracker postcard!

Western Australian Postal Markings
Western Australia
The Stamps and postal history
The western Australian study group 1979
ISBN 959647600

Brusden White 2013

Thank you Partime and Rod for the kind words and information.




Looking closely at the Perth W.A. circular cancel in the front, upper left, corner with a 10X magnifier, the date slug reads: 8 FEB. 22 12 30 AM.

Rod, I must disagree that the year was 1912, it is 1922. Thank you very much for taking the time to post the page from your reference book. I will definitely snip and save that info.

Linus

Nice card, Linus.

Rod222 says:

I do not understand the "30" am I to believe this is "centimes" ?

The correct rate for postcards from Australia to the USA was 2 pence in 1922 according to Breckon"s "Australian Commonwealth Postal Rates 1901-66".

That means the card was a half penny underpaid.

The underpayment also carried a "double the discrepancy" penalty, as I recall. That would mean that the amount to be paid was 1 penny.

It is also my recollection is that the UPU priced in centimes (as Rod suggests) and then the receiving postal service collected the shortfall after converting the centimes into the local currency. The penny shortfall must have converted to 30 centimes.

That would seem to mean that 1 cent (USA) = 5 centimes; hence the 6 cents (USA) duty.

Thanks Black Swan




I knew that Linus, the markings are used FROM 1912.
(Meaning the marks would not be found prior to that date, but anytime after)

Makes sense, thank you for the explanation on rates, Black Swan.

Oh, OK Rod, I understand you now.

Linus

Correct.
Earliest Western Australian Slogan advertising the fact was 1927

Very interesting, I did not know that. Yes, the penalty piles on more pennies at the receiver's end.

Also, this is the first postcard I had ever seen with fine print instructions on the front, explaining how to use it outside of the country.

Linus

Linus says:

"Makes sense, thank you for the explanation on rates, Black Swan."


However, it may be that there's more to this than I first thought.

It's possible that the wielder of the T30 rubber stamp classified the postcard as a "Commercial Paper". Commercial papers included" invoices and receipts, cheques and bank passbooks, waybills and orders for goods and....."postcards bearing a communication that was commercial in nature".

The correct rate for commercial papers to "foreign countries" (USA was a foreign country) in 1922 was...one penny halfpenny per 2 ounces, with a minimum charge of 4 pence.

On closer look that postcard smells like a Commercial Paper to me.

If so, then the additional charge was warranted. And, that makes more sense since the shortfall was tuppence halfpenny plus the doubling of the discrepancy to give five pence.

So, 6 cents (USA) seems to make more sense, given the exchange rates at the time.

I found this postcard in a dealer's cover box at a small stamp show in Maplewood, Minnesota. The reason I bought it was because it had more postage due on it (6 cents) than I had ever seen on any 1920s postcard before. Your explanation that penalties, and doubling of penalties, was most helpful to me to justify more than just postage, was due.

Now I know, "the rest of the story."

Thanks again,

Linus

If the deficiency would have been ½d Australian and due 1d, the 30 gold centimes charge would have implied 1d Australian = 3d British, as 10 gold centimes equalled 1d british.

What was the relation between the Australian and the British penny at the time? Wasn't that close to, if not equal to 1:1. That would imply a deficiency of 1½d.

If I am not mistaken, £1 was $5, or 1p = 500/240 c = 2.08c, and 3p = 6.24c.
This would coincide with 2c = 10 gold centimes.

I'm pretty sure that the currencies were in parity at that time.

NSK says:

This would coincide with 2c = 10 gold centimes.

And, if so, then that confirms the postcard was classified by the wielder of the T30 stamp as "Commercial Paper" at the minimum rate of 4d; not a standard postcard at the standard rate of 2d.

Interesting journey, thoroughly enjoyable!