Mailing list

In the history of mail, mailing lists go back to the form in which written correspondence was sent until the middle of the 19th century, when letters were written on one or more sheets of paper, which were then folded and sealed so that the address could be written on the outside. That is, they literally represented a letter on a sheet (of paper).

Letters had this form before envelopes came into fashion. Envelopes were practically not used until the end of the 19th century, since the postal rates of many countries were calculated taking into account an additional sheet of paper from which the envelope is made, thereby increasing the cost of sending mail when using the envelope: an additional postage was charged for an additional sheet of paper.

Prepaid mailing lists, distributed only by the official postal administration of a country, are whole things, since they are printed on postage stamps or other signs of postage indicating the advance payment of the postage (unlike glued postage stamps). Private firms also publish mailing lists, but they need to be affixed with stamps, as such firms usually do not have the right to print postage signs, and therefore postage should be paid in the usual way at regular postal rates. At some stage, the postal departments of most countries issued real mailing lists, but most of them were forced to stop producing them, except in the form of aerial programs , due to the increased popularity of envelopes.

The first whole thing put into circulation by the state is considered a postal sheet of 1608 with the coat of arms of Venice . In 1790, a postal sheet of 25 centimes was issued in Luxembourg . Between 1712 and 1870, English newspaper publishers printed colorful stamps on state-supplied paper. Envelopes were rarely used at the time. Two years before the introduction of Mulredi envelopes in the UK in 1840, mailing lists appeared in Australia . ^[3] These were prepaid mailing lists that received circulation in New South Wales in 1838. They were marked with colorless embossed stamps (which made them inconspicuous), which served as an advance payment of the postage for shipping within the city of Sydney . ^[four]

1840 British Postal Reform

Prepaid mailing lists were introduced in the UK at the same time as the first postage stamps on May 6, 1840. Rowland Hill's postal reforms included the introduction of prepaid postal sheets and envelopes, designed by artist William Mulredi , whose name is always associated with these first sheets and envelopes. Just as the first postage stamps (“ Black Penny ” and “ Blue Two Penny ”) had two denominations, just the same, postal sheets and envelopes were sold in denominations of 1 penny and 2 pence and were the same black and blue as the stamps . ^[five]

The picture depicted Britain ( English Britannia ), top in the center with a shield, and a lying lion , surrounded on both sides by a symbolic image of the continents of Asia and North America ; in the bottom two corners are people reading mail. R. Hill expected that mailing lists would become more popular than postage stamps, but it turned out just the opposite. Manufacturers of office supplies, whose well-being was threatened by new mailing lists, have released many cartoons that make fun of this innovation. ^[6] Just six days after the introduction of the mailing lists, on May 12, Hill wrote in his diary ^[7] :

I’m afraid that we will have to replace this design with Mulredi with some other brand ... The public showed disrespect and even an aversion to beauty.

Original text

I fear we shall have to substitute some other stamp for that design by Mulready ... the public have shown their disregard and even distaste for beauty.

And two months later, it was decided to replace the whole things developed by Mulredi, since to a large extent they were a mistake. ^[eight]

U.S. Postage Lists in the 19th Century

During the U.S. Civil War , in 1863, the U.S. Postal Service used two different sizes of mail sheets, but with the same postage stamp. A smaller mailing sheet was intended for the correspondence of women, and a larger one was for soldiers. Between 1886 and 1894, heavier mailing lists depicting U.S. President Ulysses Grant were used , but they were discontinued due to poor demand, and no mailing lists have been produced in the United States since.

Private paper - letter posters were printed by paper companies in New York and other cities. These mailing lists, mostly viewable with a bird's-eye view of streets and terrain, were created to comply with postal rules, which, like in the UK, were based on the number of sheets of paper, while at the same time circumventing them. Mailing lists were popular due to their size 8.5 × 21 inches (21.6 × 53.3 cm ) and the ability to fold in half, which provided four pages for writing, although the postal agency charged a fee as for sending one sheet of paper. ^[9]

Airmail Secrets

Already in 1933, special whole things were used in Iraq and Palestine on sheets of thin paper called “air letter cards” ( airmail secrets or aerograms ). The sheet was folded to the size of the blue borders; valves with an adhesive layer were used for sealing. Douglas Gumbley, director of postal services under the Government of Iraq in the 1930s, realized that there was a need for lightweight mail for use in developing air mail operations in the Middle East , since regular ground mail was paid for by weight and varied in size, and her forwarding by airmail was too expensive. He personally patented this product in February 1933, and it was first used in Iraq, and then in Palestine, where Gumbley was responsible for sending mail in the late 1930s.

World War II postal sheets

In early 1941, Great Britain introduced thin, lightweight forms, intended for use in troops abroad. Known as “air letter sheets” ^[10] , they took up much less space than regular letters, and by August civilians were allowed to use them. In the correspondence of allied prisoners of war through the Red Cross , special airmail sheets with the inscription “Prisoner of War Air Mail” ( “Prisoner of War Airmail”) were used in English and German or Japanese and with a printed 2.5-pence postal stamp. The military airmail sheets were sent for 3 pence, and a stamp with a face value of 6 pence was printed on the civilian postal sheet. ^[eleven]

A number of countries adopted the British model of airmail sheets during the war; many countries introduced them after the war. Interestingly, the British postal rate of 6 pence for sending airmail remained in effect until 1966, although other postal rates were rising.

Some German prisoner-of-war camps ^[12] and concentration camps ^[13] issued their own special mailing lists for prisoners. By the end of World War II , at least eight types of fake German field mail sheets ( ) were printed by the Office of Strategic Services during Operation Cornflakes , which aimed to undermine morale Axis countries in late 1944 - early 1945. ^[14]

Modern mailing lists

The air program, also made of porous paper with low bulk density, is the modern equivalent of airmail sheets from World War II. Most postal administrations produce them with a printed postage stamp , although Ireland , New Zealand and Rhodesia issued them without a printed postage sign and they had to affix a postage stamp on them before being sent.

The Universal Postal Union adopted the term “aerogram” ( aérogramme - the French word for airmail) in 1951-1952 at the XIII Congress of the Universal Postal Union in Brussels . From that time on, all countries except the United Kingdom, which continues to use the term air letter ( airmail ), indicate exactly this word on their aerogram.

• Aerogram
• Closed letter
• Secret
• Triangle letter

• Mailing sheet (folding) // Large Philatelic Dictionary / N. I. Vladinets, L. I. Ilyichev, I. Ya. Levitas, P. F. Mazur, I. N. Merkulov, I. A. Morosanov, Yu. K Myakota, S. A. Panasyan, Yu. M. Rudnikov, M. B. Slutsky, V. A. Jacobs; under the general. ed. N.I. Vladinets and V.A. Jacobs. - M .: Radio and communications, 1988. - S.?. - 320 p. - 40,000 copies. - ISBN 5-256-00175-2 .

• Postal leaflet // Large Philatelic Dictionary / N. I. Vladinets, L. I. Ilyichev, I. Ya. Levitas, P. F. Mazur, I. N. Merkulov, I. A. Morosanov, Yu. K. Myakota, S. A. Panasyan, Yu. M. Rudnikov, M. B. Slutsky, V. A. Jacobs; under the general. ed. N.I. Vladinets and V.A. Jacobs. - M .: Radio and communications, 1988. - S.?. - 320 p. - 40,000 copies. - ISBN 5-256-00175-2 .

• Rylkova L. P. How to store and exhibit stamps at the Postal Museum // Collection of guidelines for organizing museum work at the FSUE Russian Post branches. - M., 2005. (July.) (Retrieved August 19, 2009)

• Novoselov V. A. Chapter 13. Whole and whole things. Mailing list. Aerogram (neopr.) . Acquaintance with philately: The world of philately . Smolensk: World m @ rock; Union of Philatelists of Russia (October 30, 2008). - EBook. Date of treatment August 19, 2009. Archived February 27, 2012.

Additional Images

• 1d Mulready letter sheet (inaccessible link) . Great Britain Victorian Stamps . Images of the World; RA Taylor. Date of treatment August 19, 2009. Archived March 29, 2012.
• 2d Mulready letter sheet (inaccessible link) . Great Britain Victorian Stamps . Images of the World; RA Taylor. Date of treatment August 19, 2009. Archived March 29, 2012.
• Volume II (English) . Collections. Archive collection. Stamps & Philately. RM Phillips Collection . The British Postal Museum & Archive. Date of treatment August 19, 2009. Archived March 29, 2012.
• Volume IX (English) . Collections. Archive collection. Stamps & Philately. RM Phillips Collection . The British Postal Museum & Archive. Date of treatment August 19, 2009. Archived March 29, 2012.
• PMR. Mailing list “Golden Knight Film Festival”. Belarus. Minsk ” (unopened) (inaccessible link - history ) . Other Auctions of Belarus - Ay.by (July 27, 2009). - The mailing list of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic . Date of treatment August 19, 2009.