World War II Patriotic Postcard W/ Po Meter

By the P and O on the sides of the circular town mark, you can see this meter was applied in the post office (rather than a machine owned by the sender of the card). This particular PO (as I suspect many did at the time) had a slogan urging you to buy war bonds.

To be honest, I bought a lot of several meters just for this one card. I think it is meant to be hopeful that the war would end by Armistice Day, 1942. Of course it took a few more years to bring WWII to an end.

The back. Kind of interesting.

Frederick H. Dietz was famous for his "poster stamps" (or souvenir sheets) of that day. Here are examples I pulled from the internet of the two examples mentioned at the bottom of the previously scanned card:





By the way, it appears as though the same stylized American Flag used on the previously scanned postcard was also used on this issue:

I don't know if we have any meter specialists on this board, but the originally scanned card may be of interest for other reasons. I just checked the on-line International Postage Meter Stamp Catalog and according to that reference the Pitney Bowes (Post Office) meter would be listed as 1A3(b), used on the Pitney Bowes "R" Series Meter, first put into use in April 1940.

So far, that makes sense...BUT...

According to the same source, all of these meters carried a six (6) digit Meter Number, whereas the one shown in the original scan is only five (5) digits. Could it be the Post Office was assigned the earliest version of that meter and therefore the meter numbering is lower? Or does this represent another variety of that meter not listed? In any event, it seems rather unusual to see only a five digit meter number, considering how many of these meters were installed back in the day.

Thanks for showing me those sheets. They are quite lovely.

I hadn't gotten down to identifying the meter type yet. What you say is very interesting. I will ask the Meter Society about this one and let you know what they have to say.

Turns out it is IA3l - a Mail-O-Meter in a post office. Not what I was expecting, but I can't complain. :)

Not sure if the on-line International Postage Meter Stamp Catalog is in error, but that document suggests the Mail-o-Mat would be a IA3(k)...either way, it makes for an interesting collectible and the meter number shown on your example certainly fits within the five digit range quoted below:

Well, the key, I think, for the "l" listing is that these were issued in post offices. Hence the P and O in the town mark.

I would say it would be nice if the listing under l included the range of meter numbers used.