Meter Stamps
Meter stamps really are postage stamps too
By Doug Kelsey
This will be my last Meter Stamps column. I want to leave you with the thought that meter stamps really are postage stamps. I know what you might be
thinking. Stamps are stamps, and meter stamps are meter stamps. But meter stamps, regular and commemorative postage stamps, and postal stationery all exist for the same purpose.
They provide evidence of prepayment of postage on a piece of mail.
That was the way I began this series of Meter Stamps columns in the Oct. 19, 1992, issue of Linn’s.
But don’t take my word for it. The United States Postal Service also defines meter stamps as postage stamps in the Domestic Mail Manual and in other publications.
According to the Postal Service, when using meter
stamps to frank mail, a mailer is using stamps.
This Meter Stamps column has appeared monthly for almost 13 years.
Like most of you, I’m surprised that I found enough to write about meter stamps for this long. My purpose was to generate new meter stamp collectors and to broaden the appeal of meter stamp collecting.
Gauging by the response from readers and the growth of this segment of the hobby, I think I’ve succeeded. I believe that meter stamp collecting is the fastest growing branch of stamp collecting.
A lot has happened during the period I have been writing this column: the end of mechanical postage meters; the birth of computer-generated postage (which I began writing about in 1994); the selfservice experiments of the 1990s; the timid, yet successful, first steps by meter stamp exhibitors leading to gold medals in national and international competitions; the growth of this segment of the hobby as evidenced by the continuing success of the Meter Stamp Society; the publication of two major catalogs for U.S. and international meter stamps; the publication of other meter stamp references; the segmentation of presorted mail into thousands of complex rates in the 1990s and the corresponding meter stamp story; the addition of meter stamps in auction house catalogs; and major new discoveries, including a new standard as the world’s earliest metered mail.
No other development has dominated postal systems in the 20 th century the way the introduction and proliferation of the postage meter has.
It began in 1897 with the experimental Di Brazza letter registering box trials in New York City. A meter stamp from that 19 th century experiment is shown in Figure 1.
The story continues with the modern development of the computer and digital postage represented by the Stamps.com computer-generated 37¢ stamp shown in Figure 2.
Over the years, I have documented the origins and history of the postage meter industry and meter stamp collecting. It’s been fun for me, but it’s time for me to devote my attention to other subjects within my main interest of postal history.
This column would not have been possible without the sustained reader interest and the responses received.
Surprisingly, some of those who contributed to this series include the Moody Blues rock group, the Walt Disney Co., the Postal Service and many Linn’s readers — everybody, it seems, except Pitney Bowes and the other postage meter companies. Their lack of cooperation and interest is puzzling.
The only other troubling aspect of writing this column has been my failure to convince the editors of the Scott
Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers to provide listings of meter stamps in accordance with the editors’ stamp-listing criteria, which meter stamps clearly meet.
Despite dominating the mailstream, meter stamps are not listed in the Scott U.S. specialized catalog while some nonpostal products, such as revenue stamps, are. Omitting meter stamps from the Scott U.S. specialized catalog is a disservice to collectors, and it is emblematic of the editors’ lack of vision for the hobby.
There is enough meter stamp material out there to have lots of fun building a fantastic collection. As an added bonus, it is mostly free or inexpensive.
New discoveries are still being made in this fascinating aspect of stamp collecting. For example, Linn’s Modern U.S. Mail columnist Tony Wawrukiewicz has compiled an exhibit of modern computer-generated postage stamps that were issued in only the last 10 years.
This is material that is so new that it can be found just by opening your mailbox. Wawrukiewicz earned a gold medal with this exhibit at a national exhibition.
Collecting modern meter stamps and computer-generated stamps is easy and fun.
Continue your meter stamp education by joining the Meter Stamp Society.
The society is a valuable source of meter stamps and covers.
In addition to the quarterly journal, the society provides free want ads for members and regular auctions of some of the best and most interesting meter stamps in the world. Updates to the meter stamp catalogs are also published in the journal.
Membership in the society is $20 for U.S. residents and $36 for delivery to foreign addresses.
Write to Meter Stamp Society Secretary-Treasurer, Box 65930, Tucson, AZ 85728.
I especially want to thank Richard Graham, Linn’s Postal History columnist, for getting me started writing about this subject.
He mentored me and gave me the inspiration to undertake the task.
I also want to thank the several editors at Linn’s who, over the years, have done an excellent job of keeping me from looking bad in a subject area mostly unfamiliar to them.
Finally, as I have written many times, remember that meter stamps pay for all the rates that regular stamps were issued to pay for, as well as those rates for which no regular stamp was issued.
There is the potential for a lot of exciting postal history contained in that statement. Adept collectors can use it to their advantage to build a terrific and fun collection.
Meter stamps most emphatically are stamps.
Embrace it. Enjoy it. Learn from it.
Figure 1. An experimental Di Brazza meter stamp used in New York City in 1897.
Figure 2. A Stamps.com computer-generated 37¢ U.S. postage stamp.