Faux Postage Paid Indicia

When I opened this morning's newspaper, this envelope fell out.





Does anyone else have similar items? wt1? ;)

How cute. A permit indicia made to look like a meter.

I don't think it's even a permit indicium. It didn't actually go through the mail. It was wrapped up inside the newspaper along with the store flyers.

Zuzu, I bet you they are asking for money, or selling something in that envelope. It is a postage paid reply envelope; I have gotten those in the Sunday paper. Only difference with the above example, mine you had to put a stamp on!

Peter

I agree, it looks like a fake postage paid indicium. Some things that pop out to me:
What's "Class A Mail"? Never heard of it.
Shouldn't it have some sort of permit number?
The IBI bar code looks wrong.
Also, it looks like they're bordering on trademark infringement with that eagle. The Pitney Bowes eagle is very similar.

Cheers,
Robert

Also, there should be a frank somewhere--the amount paid or the word PAID on the envelope somewhere.

Right you are Zuzu, not a permit, my mistake. There was an A rate mail (the start of the letter rates). I wonder if the Class A is a reference to the letter rates. Fascinating item.

I've edited the thread title to remove the question mark as I think it was giving the impression that I was asking about what the item is.

Just to clarify the purpose I had in mind when creating this thread, I want to share this interesting advertising "cover" and would like to see other similar items if anyone has them.

I haven't decided whether to open the silly thing (it appears to be an advertisement for some sort of prescription discount club), but if I do, I'll post the contents here as well.

I agree many large mailing houses do attempt to mimic legitimate postage meters, with just enough of a difference to avoid any copyright infringement, although I must admit the eagle head shown in your example is very close to that used by Pitney Bowes.

I thought it would be fun to compare your example side-by-side with a legitimate Pitney Bowes indicia and came up with this:



Note the longer feathering (A); no open line at upper right corner (B); longer beak shown in the PB example (C); thicker line at lower right corner (D); and slightly different shaped curve at (E).

Close enough that copyright infringement of the eagle could be an issue, but I'm sure PB chooses their battles carefully as to what may or may not infringe on their image v. the legal fees to fight any court battle over it.

Beyond your scan, there are other mailing houses that mimic other legitimate postage meter designs, too. Take for example this Data-Pac meter comparison. The left design is that used on a mass mailing piece; the right design is the legitimate Data-Pac Postage Meter indicia: