Registry Bills And Return Receipts

Some years ago, I acquired these items from a $1 box among some postcards. I liked them because they were all territorial pieces (three with postmarks), but I don't know much about them. Are they scarce? Is there much collector interest in them? Can anyone offer a little background?

These are the typical forms used during this time period used as receipts for registered mail. They are nicer than the ones used today. The forms themselves do not seem to be scarce and from a survey of current and recent past items on ebay they do not command a strong collector's interest. Any collector interest and value would be tied to postmarks/or and handstamps. Those that have sold recently on ebay range anywhere from a few dollars to close to $200 for an overseas military postmark, but most remain unsold - probably due to overpricing and/or low demand.
I have seen these cards at shows in dollar boxes. Doubleday has many hundreds of them in a few of his dollar boxes.

If only we had more dealers like them out West. Too bad they don't get to shows in Oregon -- I'd spend some money at their table!

I have now seen cards for:
Registry Bill
Registered Package Receipt
Registry Return Receipt
Registry Dispatch Receipt Card

Can anyone explain the purposes of these items? Are considered postal stationery?

Large volumes of these cards were created. IN GENERAL they are not particularly special. HOWEVER some are important postal history for being about the only way to collect certain post office cancels. Also what throws these out of balance is that there have been some large holding discovered in some small post offices (think in the walls), thus DPOs live on through these. For example I own the only known strike of a fancy shield style cancel used in Bodie, California which is on one of these PO to PO reply cards (not reply card to sender). It did not surface until after the publications which list such things so it is "unlisted."

There are two general early types. Those tracking registered shipments from postmaster to post master and registry reply cards which go back to the customer which mailed the item.

As to the reply cards for the senders they first were for registry then in 1913, registered and insured, then registered, insured and certified. Domestic is the most common, US to a foreign destination return receipts are uncommon.

As with most items, value is driven by interest. These cards had little interest for stamp collectors because, well they did not have stamps. Same goes for many postal history collectors, no stamps, no interest.





They all represent the movement of one or more registered pieces of mail for part of the delivery trip or the entire delivery trip (Edit: a better phrase is "verification of movement").

They are not really considered postal stationery as there is no prepaid stamp. They are better considered as part of penalty mail postal history of the USPOD.

Hello GregAlex and all,

Nice material. Many registered forms can be found in the United States Post Office Forms Data Base on Stampsmarter https://stampsmarter.org/features/N..._ViewDB.html Given the amount of forms required to document "the chain of custody" required by registery regulations there are multiple forms and many examples of each in circulation.

Yes, most by themselves are of minimal value given the quantity of each produced. Some are more sought after by collectors than others based on their cancelations and geography. Your interest in territorial items is a good example. Enjoy.

Here's a recent Registered Package Receipt I picked up. I found the RPO cancellation interesting. How did this work? Did train depots have a PO branch where you could register mail?

My book, "Registered U.S.A." is available as a free download both on the APS and Stampsmarter web sites. Documents the ruies and regulations behind the use of these forms and gives examples of forms and their related covers. Enjoy.

Russ's book is here
https://stampsmarter.org/features/NYReg_Book.html
Don

Thank you! I'll take a look.