Metered Postage From Around The World

That T-N Meter in your last scan is rather unique. Upon looking it up it would be known today as FP Mailing Solutions, before that Francotyp-Postalia, before that Postalia, and before that Tele-Norm, a West German company who first entered the US postage meter market in 1962.

In fact, here's an article from a Florida Newspaper that announces how philatelists were forming new collecting interests due to the arrival of these new postage meters:

Wt1 you are full of information. You have helped me on numerous posts and in the process have lead me to learn so many things. Just wanted to say thank you so much.

I saw a couple more of these as well. When I get more time I'll post some more. Thanks again and love the article.

Enjoyed looking at these meters & reading the info. Here are some of mine, hope you like them.

From Vietnam & Philippines

From Taiwan. IBM (Digital) first used 1993.
With barcode inside the frame, single circle town mark, ID# after the date.

Here's one from a hospital in Singapore , showing the local rate of 26 cents. Neopost meter.

I've never seen those before. Thanks for sharing.

The one from the Philippines is interesting as it uses the reference "ZIP Code". I always thought ZIP Code was a US-coined phrase meaning Zone Improvement Plan. I had no idea it was extended to the Philippines. (Usually other countries refer to these as post codes or postal codes.)

Here's a common US Pitney Bowes postage meter example I just received today on a 9x12 envelope. No reason whatsoever that it should have received a cancellation, yet it did. What I find interesting is the postmark itself. It was applied as a spray-on cancel yet it has a distinctive style about it. The city name uses upper and lower case letters (which is rather unusual) yet the date uses upper case letters only. It also seems much easier to read than the typical spray-on cancels that are so common today:

France 2003 meter from Nice on fluorescent paper with a design of paper airplanes.


This label is also used in ATM machines but this is a meter because of the date. Denominated in Euros and French Francs as Euro coins and bills had just been introduced in 1/1/2002.

Canada 1999 from Vancouver, close cut along bottom unfortunately.

Here are a couple of US inkjet meters.

The first one is rather unique as it predates the use of a bar code and the programming had not yet set the city/state/ZIP code, yet it legitimately paid the postage on a parcel. It also uses a red top border (as opposed to pink).

As this example is dated February 9, 1993, I've often wondered how this example compares to the earliest known use of this equipment. Does anybody know?



Here's a later example dated July 15, 1993, when the bar code was introduced and the label stripe changed to pink. Unfortunately, as demonstrated here, the label is not going to stand the test of time as the ink jet printing has already deteriorated and will eventually become unreadable.

I find it interesting that Braveheart's KGVI meter on the previous page actually says Great Britain, when their actual stamps never give the country name.

What year or years was that GB meter used?
heres one from Karachi, Pakistan - note the date!

France 1993 meter from Argenteuil, birds flying.
Stamp outline design for the meter overprint. (stamp on meter)

120 drachma 1992 meter from Piraeus, Greece.
Pitney Bowes-GB "6300" (Multi-value)
Meter number with "PB" prefix at lower right outside frame.

Republic of China Meter Labels