Old Postage Due Stamps...still Useable?

This may be a silly question, but I have to ask.
Canada no longer issues or uses postage due stamps. Are old postage due stamps (and this could apply to any country really) usable as postage on a piece of mail?
I looked on the CanadaPost web site and didn't see anything about it.

They were never intended to be used by postal customers. They were for the post office to apply to underpaid mailings.

jamesw

An interesting question. In most cases there are regulations that deal with such matters. I love finding them. In the case of postage dues, here is Section 398 from the Canada Official Postal Guide (1959).

398. POSTAGE DUE STAMPS of the 1c, 2c, 4c, 5c, 6c, and 10c denominations are issued to postmasters on requisition in the usual way. These stamps are to be affixed to short paid mail and cancelled by postmasters when such mail is delivered, and are not to be used for any other purpose whatsoever. In no circumstances are they to be used for the PREPAYMENT (emphasis is original) of postage and must not be sold to the public.

Of course, collectors could purchase dues from the philatelic bureau.

According to s. 398, dues were to be cancelled only when the mail was delivered. Dues were usually handstamped when the mail was picked up at a post office (box holders, general delivery mail).





Addressed to P.O. Box 143. Postage due paid at the Shawinigan post office and handstamped.

A lot of dues however received pen or pencil cancellations. These were applied by letter carriers upon delivery.





Letter carrier delivery and pen obliteration.


This was not the case in Britain, France, Switzerland and other countries. Dues were affixed and cancelled before delivery. If the recipient refused to pay the amount due, the dues received a handstamp indicating that they were void. This resulted in interesting covers such as the Netherlands cover below.





A Canadian cover like this does not exist because the dues were only cancelled when the letter was delivered and the postage due paid.

To save time, letter carriers sometimes affixed the dues to the envelopes BEFORE they delivered the mail but with selvage attached to the stamp. The selvage and not the stamp was stuck on the letter. If the due was not paid, the due stamp could be detached from the selvage.

Lorddenning, your top example is interesting to me in that it shows a postage due amount of 3 cents. The postage due owing was double the shortfall in the prepaid amount, and since Canada hasn't dealt with stamps in 1/2 cent denominations since the days of Queen Victoria, I've often wondered what possible use we could have had for the various 3c and 5c postage due issues that have been released. Sure, foreign exchange matters like the French cover, or perhaps a US envelope that came through with one of those odd 4 1/2 cent Alamo Hermitage stamps, but that hardly seemed like an excuse for a 3c postage due issue.

Ryan

Usage of Canadian postage dues was discontinued on 01 January 1982.

Ryan

There aren't many domestic single usages of the odd denomination postage due stamps. Some types of mail were taxed at SINGLE deficiency and not double deficiency. That's why there are odd value postage dues.

Examples for the Cameo - Centennial period:

1. Redirected letter to an address with a higher rate

Example, 4 cent local letter redirected to another city (5 cent rate). The amount due was SINGLE the difference in rates (5c - 4c = 1c)



2. Third Class Mail returned to sender

Returned printed matter was taxed at the third class rate (not doubled)

3 cent third class rate



Unfortunately a 3 cent postage due stamp was not used.

Centennial Example





Unfortunately just the Tax-no dues affixed!

5 cent third class rate






3. Business Reply Post Card

5 cents due per card received by addressee.
I don't have an example to show.


The 1c, 3c, 5c were also used with other dues:

More Uses FOR ODD Denomination Postage Dues

A fee was charged for the return of undeliverable international mail that was processed by the Dead Letter Office/Undeliverable Mail office. I'm showing two covers, one from the George VI era and the other from the Elizabeth Wilding period.






The charge was 3 cents. Too bad no dues were affixed.



The return fee had increased from 3 cents to 5 cents.



5 cents due - again, no dues affixed.

Wow, this has unexpectedly turned into a terrific thread. Thanks all for your responses and posts. Admittedly I was hoping to use some old postage dues, damaged ones I couldn't/wouldn't sell to you folks or anybody else, as regular postage. But lordenning's incredible detective work uncovering Section 398 answers that question pretty clearly.
I may put on on an envelope and send it to myself anyway, just as an experiment.

Give it a try... I mean, just look at what has passed for postage: https://goscf.com/t/28534

Interesting, but I have several mint sheets of postage due stamps from the late 1970s. A friendly small town postmaster sold them to me. They are for sale for one gajillion dollars a sheet.

Here is a "Big 2" on a 1930 postcard. Deficiency to U.S., 1 cent, due 2 cents.

Another Odd Denominated Postage Due Usage : Undeliverable Mail


During the Elizabethan period to October 31, 1968, if a letter was undeliverable and there was no return address on the outside, the mail was sent to an Undeliverable Mail Office to be opened and returned to the sender for a fee of 5 cents.



Items returned to sender from the Undeliverable Mail Office (UMO) was sent in an ambulance envelope. This example sent from the Toronto UMO to Toronto on May 14, 1968 was from Printing Order 33-65-024 (6-67).

The 5 cent fee was paid and a 5 cent postage due stamp was affixed to the envelope.

lorddenning, you have some very nice stuff there.

Thanks for showing those items and giving us the in depth postal history
behind them.
Please keep it up.

I wish now I had kept some covers forty, fifty years ago instead
of snipping off the stamps.

But in those days who gave a dam for commercial covers, myself
and the majority were only after clean, cacheted FDC.

So I did it. I sent a 'letter' to my sister using a 10c postage due (J20) as postage. She's just emailed me to tell me that it got through. But of course, no cancel!
Guess I'll have to try again to get a good cover.

Perhaps your next test should be to take a cover to the post office and request a hand cancel.

Except for some smudges and the orange scan lines across the bottom, you wouldn't know this had gone through the system.



But as for taking directly to the post office for a hand cancel, I think even the dimmest postal clerk would notice the improper postage on this one.