Upu Rules For Displaying Country On Postage?

HI folks

I received a postcard from Italy recently with metered postage, and a question popped into my noodle:

Why doesn't the label show any mention of the country of origin?

I thought that UPU rules/standards required the country to be displayed. Of course, the UPU website is so hard to find info from I gave up looking for those standards.

Can anyone explain why Italy doesn't need to be listed on this postage label/meter?

JD

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This'll get you started ...

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_cen.../usmu010.asp ... UPU Treaty 18741009 ... full text

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I'm either blind, or the info isn't part of that page. Hmmm... HAS to be SOMEWHERE!

Perhaps it's in the QR code?

Nells250, I do not think your blind. It sets out the treaty and final protocal adopted in 1874 and terminated by convention in 1878. Good information on the UPU treaty but no mention of identification in that article.

According to wikipedia- "Since Britain first used postage stamps locally there was no need for a country name. It was later by agreement with other foreign post offices that it could continue as long as the sovereign's effigy was placed on the stamp."

Mike

Here's a link to the UPU Conventions on the UPU web site:

http://www.upu.int/en/the-upu/acts-...volumes.html

The Conventions document contains the Universal Postal Convention and a lot of supporting information on both letter post and parcel post.

For example, here from page 8 is the wording regarding from Article 6 of the convention on the identification of a country on its stamps:

3 Postage stamps comprise:

3.1 the name of the member country or territory of issue, in roman letters ***,

or, if the UPU International Bureau is so requested by the member
country or territory of issue, the abbreviation or initials officially representing
- the member country or territory of issue, in accordance with
- the conditions laid down in the Regulations;

3.2 the face value, expressed:

3.2.1 in principle, in the official currency of the country or territory of issue,
or as a letter or symbol;

3.2.2 through other identifying characteristics.

with the following footnote (my *** symbol above):

An exception shall be granted to the United Kingdom, the country which invented the postage stamp.

There are regulations and guidance about printed postal impressions on the next few pages including examples on page 14 with two-dimensional codes such as in the original post.

This is not a QR code but makes use of UPU's own S28 technical standard.

I do wonder as hy-brasil has suggested whether this includes a country code.

The coding structure in the S28 standard is defined in a separate document.

One of the advantages of being a designer of laser scanning devices...the bar code above decodes to this

1P10000105IUP1Q999990000280690000ZZZZZUP055SC8000YY000000000000000000000


Don

Thanks Don!

I thought there might have been an "IT" or "380" code for Italy in there somewhere.

Wikipedia is not properly vetted. Be careful.

NIGEL - that is pretty much what I remember reading years ago! So now the question is, do those same rules pertain to meters/labels like this one? Does Italy only care that the postal system's computers know it is from ITALY?

would the fact that Italy is a EURO country, and that there is an agreement between all EURO countries in trade and services allow for the fact that the value would be for the EURO pact countries to be the same & not under a separate agreement but bundled under the EURO pact??? (Therefore EURO is noted not the specific country)

eligies:

I've raised the same point in the context of the new UPU package rules: if intra-EU packages do not require Customs declarations, there is no reason for a new UPU rule requiring Customs declarations to be anything other than ignored on intra-EU mail.

But the idea that Italian CVP machines issue different postage labels for intra-EU mail strikes me as unlikely ... even though, as you say, only EU members are denominating postage in EUROs, so Euro-denominated postage adequately identifies the customs-zone-of-origin of not the country-of-origin.

Q/ Maybe the 'designer' of the label made a mistake?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey