| Message: |
The item illustrated here is a postcard from Leipzig to Sweden, mailed by a collector who is introducing the addressee to a ‘postal novelty’, self-service registration labels, and speculating on their future rarity – as well he might, since some of them, including this one, are now quite elusive and valuable.
In April 1967 the DDR Ministry of Posts introduced self-service machines at ten post-offices on a trial basis. The left-hand half of the double-label was to be stuck on the item to be mailed, the right-hand half on the posting-receipt [Einlieferungsschein]. The experimental labels were printed on thickish off-white paper or thin transparent paper, in red-lilac with the label-number in black, perf 9½ or 12½, and cost the normal registration fee of 50Pf. Initially, because of fears about international acceptability, foreign mail bearing these labels had to be hand-stamped in addition with a boxed ‘Gebühr / bezahlt / T.P.’ in red or violet (‘T.P.’ = ‘Taxe perçue’, French for ‘postage paid’), though only six of the ten post-offices were issued with such hand-stamps. Following on the success of the pilot scheme hundreds of post offices received their own machine and labels, the label number thenceforth being printed in the same red-lilac as the frame.
In this trial example the two 10Pf stamps represent an over-payment of the 15Pf foreign postcard rate. Presumably to demonstrate the system the sender actually carbon-copied the details he wrote on the Einlieferungsschein on to the postcard itself! – compare the lay-out of a later item’s Einlieferungsschein reproduced here.
|
