Meter Stamps & Covers

"A new adhesive stamp issue is front page news. When a new meter stamp is issued, it goes unreported. Most adhesive stamps are issued with philatelic sales a goal while meter stamps are produced solely for postal purposes." —Ken Wood, Stamp Collector, January 10, 1987

THE OLD AND THE NEW
Top: The world's earliest metered mail (1897); Di Brazza Letter Registering Box, New York City. This is the only known example outside a museum.

Bottom: A first day cover of Pitney Bowes' ClickStamp Online postage generated via the Internet on a personal computer. This cover was produced on the USPS-approved national launch of computer postage, August 9, 1999

Count Detalmo de Brazza Savorgnan of Rome, Italy received at least two U.S. patents for a "coin-freed letter posting or stamping machine" on June 30 and July 28, 1896. His automatic postage franking machine was on public trial in New York City in 1897. This was the world's first postage meter. The only known cover from this machine is in my collection.

Arthur Pitney received a patent on his first postage meter in 1902 and is credited as the father of the invention we know today. He met Walter H. Bowes, who owned a stamp-canceling and check-endorsing machine company in 1919 and formed an historic partnership in 1920, the Pitney-Bowes Postage Meter Company.

Collecting meter stamps has led to some interesting developments in my philatelic life. In 1992 I was able to purchase the personal archives of Arthur Pitney from the Pitney family. Later I acquired the archives and collection of Alfred Kanzler, a 47-year employee of Pitney-Bowes (1920-1967) who was there when it all started and documented the development of the industry from the inside.

The best education a student can get about this subject is to read my Linn's Stamp News columns.

WHAT IS A POSTAGE METER?
A postage stamp is a receipt for the prepayment of a fee to use the mail system. In the United States there are three traditional types of receipts—postage stamps—recognized, authorized, and defined as such by the U.S. Postal Service: adhesive stamps, postal stationery, and meter stamps. Joining the group now is computer postage.

The postage meter is a Government-licensed mailing machine that imprints the frank that is legal postage. It prints a pre-paid postage meter stamp of any value required for any type of mail, including special services, directly on the envelope (or on an adhesive tape) in a single operation. The postage meter's stamp is non-negotiable and requires no cancellation. It can be used only by the licensed user whose assigned meter number appears in the meter stamp itself except in the case of the self-service, public franking machines such as Mailomats. The postage meter puts the power of postage stamp printing in the hands of the customer.

Business and industry were/are the main users of postage meters so the items found in your daily mailbox are representative of the commercial mail of the era. Until recently it was thought that metered mail is generally unattractive and of little philatelic importance so most meter-stamped covers were discarded making those that remain all the more interesting, uncommon, and challenging to collect.

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