Classifying Official/Penalty Envelopes

Any idea how they accounted for postage? No wonder they went back to stamps/meters.

The postal manuals I've seen describe the general pattern you mentioned. I can't, however, find a postal manual for that time period (1976 [the beginning of the USPS] to 1980 [the first issue of O127]). The earliest I can find is 2003. Any idea where/how I could locate one?

Thanks!
Dan

I have sent a request to determine if another participant in that discussion has a better memory than mine. If I get positive results, I will post here.

I collect Penalty covers and Government covers, I just organize them by Indicia & Year as some of these are quite interesting.

Here is one that proves that the $300 threat of penalty actually kept Government Employees honest.

I would rather refer to them as penalty covers than officially printed envelopes.

I like that the guy was sort of honest. He stole an official envelope, but he paid the postage. :o)
This happened alot, of course.

ThomasGalloway,

Thanks for taking the time to make a contact.

Official/Penalty covers seem to be better ordered before the USPS came into existence. After that, they were all over the place until they went back to stamps and meters in 1980.

Dan

Also, there was no value to these at the time and since they were not official postal stationary or postage stamps there was zero security or control over them. When an office needed some they simply ordered boxes full of them along with the pens and pencils and staples and scotch tape and letterhead paper and so on. They were printed in huge quantities and the only time a government agency had to pay any mailing cost to the post office was when someone inside that agency actually put one into the outgoing mail stream for the post office to deliver. It is still the same today except the designs have changed so that the post office eagle is no longer included.

usps was formed 7/1/71 from the pod vs 1976 if looking for manuals in 76 they might go back further to 71 to begin the usps hunt for items (manuals).

I recall many sizes of these envelopes from my time supervising the commander 17th uscg dist office (fpa), Juneau, Ak. 99802 (uscg military pay office) we got the envelopes from the print shop in the basement and like pre cancelled stamps we had a number on file to use at the post office (the main post office for juneau is first floor of the fed bldg.) ,with the envelopes- we had a stamp we had to ink and stamp each envelope with our registered number, three digits. the printshop was in the basement but the federal building housed many federal agency's and they all used that shop so they no doubt had their own envelopes printed and used their own inked rubber stamp on them, all envelopes had the penalty wording and franking. It showed the post office that we had authorized the use of the envelope by stamping our number no number they returned and we investigated if improperly used. we mostly used the 8 1/2 x 11 or 11x14 envelopes for documents and payrecords to be sent out certified mail.

Interesting! So, did the post office just bill the agency for the number used? Could these envelopes be used for a single letter or were these envelopes only used for bulk mailing? There were no standards for the printing?




I haven't seen any official envelopes post 1983 that didn't have an official stamp (SC O127 + ) or a meter. An example would be informative.

Thanks!
Dan

Maybe I'm looking for the wrong thing but I have boxes of envelopes that don't have any rubber stamping on them. Everything is printed. Do you have an example?

Thanks!
Dan

No I do not have an example of 1 year shy of 40years ago. lol, I looked and only came up with a 1984 form that had the preprinted three digit dept of transportation number. I also have a lot of government unused newer envelopes without the three digit number but I have none with the rubber stamped three digit number. Those enveloped hit the round file quick as could be to move the garbage in garbage out grind. Over the years I had thrown out bulk that did not matter in order to move many many many times over 40 years and only kept the geneology, military records and health records, envelopes got tossed.

i only have a form from 1984 assignment data form with the dept of transportation 3digit number preprinted

a call to the federal bldg in juneau print shop might have an old timer to chat with those guys usually held those jobs for a life time of 30years or more. maybe they can help you.

No I do not have an example of 1 year shy of 40years ago. lol, I looked and only came up with a 1984 form that had the preprinted three digit dept of transportation number. I also have a lot of government unused newer envelopes without the three digit number but I have none with the rubber stamped three digit number. Those enveloped hit the round file quick as could be to move the garbage in garbage out grind. Over the years I had thrown out bulk that did not matter in order to move many many many times over 40 years and only kept the genealogy, military records and health records, envelopes got tossed.

i only have a form from 1984 assignment data form with the dept of transportation 3digit number preprinted

a call to the federal bldg in juneau print shop might have an old timer to chat with those guys usually held those jobs for a life time of 30years or more. maybe they can help you.

LarryBruce,



Thanks for the info on the three digit number. It makes sense. After working in government for 17 years, I can only imagine how Byzantine their accounting system was! It probably was a factor to return to stamps and meters.




This is why I find these covers interesting. They weren't available commercially and were not actively collected. Most of them hit the garbage can.
It seems to be a tiny slice of postal history that hasn't received much attention.

Dan

Yes. As I said these were not considered to be postal stationary - they are just the envelopes everyone used to mail a letter, a document, a whatever. They were printed up on small envelopes, legal sized envelopes, oversized envelopes, whatever was needed to mail stuff. The agency was billed by the post office by the number of items that were given to the post office to deliver so there was no need to control the printing of these. Every agency just printed as many of whatever kind of envelope they wanted with little care as to any differences in the exact way the penalty wording was printed other than the words had to be the same; or the style in which the agency return address was printed so long as it was the return address. The envelope paper was either white or manila and there was little care as to the weight of the paper other than it work. It was very much like what a company does when they print up their stationary, except government agencies could print their envelopes with the penalty wording and not have to use postage stamps of any kind. These envelopes had nothing to do with either the Post Office Department or the USPS other than they were accepted by them into the mail and they would charge the agency by the piece that was accepted into the mail.

I suppose it is all relative but I would not consider it to be tiny. Every federal agency was cranking these out by the millions for all of the mailing needs. I think the reason they were not collected is they were not postal stationary and were not sold by the POD or USPS since they had no cash value like stamps or official postal stationary.

It sounds like khj's classification system posted earlier is the best alternative.

I really wish I could find a copy of the Domestic Postal Manual for that era though. It would be interesting to see what regs, if any, there were.

Thanks for the information!
Dan