Official Postal Cards

The Official Postal Cards are probably the least studied of all types of usage. The modern mint cards are plentiful and cheap, while all of the used ones are rare and expensive. Cards and Stationery having non-denominated pictorial or text-only vignettes are unlisted, with many types representing all kinds of different government departments, such as the Commerce or Interior. These official postal cards deserve a thorough study, for they are certainly as interesting as the listed types.

With the exception of the Postal Savings Cards of the turn of the century and the recently issued denominated modern cards, the majority of the official cards are known as non-denominated, 'penalty' cards. This is probably because of the indicia which usually includes a 'penalty for private use $300' clause. Some recently discovered and rare types of denominated official cards include the overprint Postage and Fees Paid ...'. Only a few of these have turned up. They all appear to be overprinted upon obsolete-rate postal cards and were used as a false franking during the fifties and sixties. These types of usages were probably quickly replaced by Non-denominated Postage and Fees Paid Cards. A great article appeared very recently in 'Postal Stationery' explaining how these cards fit into the family of official postal cards.

The Evolution of the Pictorial Vignettes on the Non-Denominated Official Postal Stationery is an interesting study onto itself. While there are quite a few different Early varieties, with the advent of the 'Postage and Fees Paid' cards, a sharp-looking stylized Eagle vignette was adopted by the Post Office Department. When the Post Office Department became the United States Postal Service, this changed to the more familiar framed eagle design which remained in use until recently. There are many, many usages for these non-denominated cards. Some interesting common examples are Return Receipts, Address Correction Notices, and COD Package Arrival Notices. Less common examples might include departmental notices from either The General Services Administration , or The Health, Education and Welfare Administration (Social Security). Most of these cards are probably sitting in land-fills, since I wouldn't expect that many people kept them after whatever government business the cards pertained to had been concluded.

In 1983 the US Government again began producing denominated Official Postal Cards. As time has gone on, it appears that the usages seen on these modern cards appear more and more dubious of origin. Truly legitimate 'official' usages of these cards are a sub-rarity of the used cards. The majority of the used cards appear to have been used by the Soil Conservation Service and the Armed Forces Recruiters.

The most recent official mail pictorial logo adopted by the postal service is a streamlined eagle vignette. It appears to be a short-lived one too, for the latest postal regulations have called for the universal adoption of the 'colorful and interesting' permit indicia to be used henceforth for all governmental official business. I believe that G-10 is reserved for Postal Service official mail. Other government departments have their own permit numbers. Effectively, penalty mail is now obsolete and can no longer be used for official business. Although these cards will in all likelyhood continue to be around for several more years, I would guess that the era of the denominated official postal card is just about over as well. And so ends another colorful chapter in the specialty of postal card collecting...