The history of postal prepaid technology

Original author: Gerrit Bleumer
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I hope you will be pleasantly surprised by our excursion into postal technologies. There are not many developments, but all of them are super complex and incredibly interesting. We will definitely go through the present, but to begin with, a tribute to history and memory. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand the scale.

The origin of the word "Mail" and its required attributes


The first documented use of the prototype courier service for the distribution of written documents was recorded in Egypt, where the pharaohs used couriers to announce their decrees on papyrus sheets around 2400 BC. The next best-studied example is the runner in ancient Greece, who in 490 BC delivered a message from the Marathon to Athens (42.195 km) about the victory of the Greek army over the king of Persia.

The ancient Romans owned a well-organized network of couriers to distribute messages for army purposes. They created special stations where it was possible to spend the night or change a horse. The Latin names of stations for changing (mutatio posita) and resting (mansio posita) became the progenitor of the word “Post” (Post).

In the 12th and 14th centuries, knights' orders built a professional mail delivery system for their own needs. For centuries, messages were delivered by couriers or salesmen on foot or by horses, and then by postal carriages. In 1490, the Italian Janetto von Tassis (hereinafter called Thurn und Taxis) received an exclusive license from Emperor Habsburg Maximilian I to organize a postal service for army and administrative communications through the territory of Habsburg. He set up horse replacement stations and staffed couriers with horns.for guaranteed and reliable delivery at a distance of 1024 km between Innsbruck (Innsbruck, Austria) and Mechelen (Mechelen, Belgium) in 5 or 6 days, regardless of summer or winter time. Subsequently, Janetto operated a postal network through the entire eastern continental Europe, and again received an exclusive license from the Habsburg emperor Rudolph II to provide postal transport services for the government. To lower costs, Jeanette was allowed to transport messages between private individuals. This license was the basis for the creation of the first postal system in continental Europe.

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The horn is still found in postal logos to this day.


Pay for postage in advance? No, not heard!


Until the 17th century, it was normal practice for recipients to travel to a mail delivery point to collect correspondence. The process was extremely unpleasant if the alleged correspondence did not reach this point. Around 1700, the Prussia Post introduced a mail delivery system by private servants for privileged recipients. The first official letter delivery service was mentioned in the charter of the Prussia Post in 1710. The official street mail box presented by the Prussia Post in 1824 was also a great relief for senders.

Until 1850, it was natural to charge only the recipients of the shipmentand only after successful delivery. Addressees often refused to pay for items, moving them to the category of unclaimed. This caused a lot of inconvenience, because the fact of delivery has already been completed. Moreover, the price for a shipment usually depended on the chosen delivery route. Because Exact cards were not available to everyone, the price for delivery to the recipient always turned out to be different.

Due to the fact that the delivery price in most cases was high and equal to the average cost of a working day, people in every possible way looked for all kinds of ways to reduce the cost. For example, there were senders and recipients using special symbols applied to the shell of the message, by which it was possible to understand the contents without receivingand further autopsy. The recipient always refused to receive such a shipment, leaving the courier to choose whether to destroy the shipment or return back and take the shipping cost from the sender. The risk of non-payment by the recipient has led the industry to uncertainty that impedes the development of postal delivery standards.

The first centralized postal service within the country was created in England in 1516. In the document “Postal Reform: Its Importance and Feasibility” , written by Sir Rowland Hill in 1835, a proposal appeared to tax all letters up to 14.5 grams with a fee of one penny, with obligatory payment by the sender in the form of a brand sticker. Due to this, the problem of rejection of items had to be solved.

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Sir Rowland Hill


The first attempt to introduce prepaid items


The necessary level of trust of senders according to the plans must be maintained through the creation of an official postal system and the unification of postal rates. Tariffs were also forecasted against the backdrop of a tremendous increase in shipments and, as a result, an increase in revenue for the postal system and the Queen of England itself. The plan was adopted, and the bill was signed by Queen Victoria on August 17th, 1839.

The first stamp was released in 1840 in England. They were One Penny Black and Two Pence Blue . The portrait of Queen Victoria was taken from a medal made by William Wyon. The prepaid envelope is designed by William Mulready.

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The first mark on planet Earth

Reform of the postal system initiated by Sir Rowland Hill proved to be really successful - in one year the volume of shipments in the UK tripled . The main reason was the simplest tariffication. A huge number of postal operators in continental Europe and America have adapted the concept of prepaid items in the form of stamps with a self-adhesive base. The USA issued the first stamp in 1847, Germany in 1872, Japan - 1871.

In order to standardize postal rules and actions at the international level, the USA called for the creation of an international postal congress, first convened in 1863. The chairman of the union was Heinrich von Stephan, Prussian postal minister. In the future, it was he who headed and founded the Universal Postal Union.

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Founder of the Universal Postal Union, Heinrich von Stefan

International Email Engagement


The Main Postal Union, this is exactly what the community signed up to on October 9, 1874, called the community, which included 22 countries. Already at the second world postal meeting in Paris in 1878, the name was changed to “Universal Postal Union” . At this congress, the UPU decided that all mail, postcards and parcels should come with a payment symbol in the form of a stamp.

The Union also decided to introduce a universal uniform tariff for sending letters worldwide; on the provision of the same conditions for domestic and foreign shipments; on the preservation of all funds collected for international shipments. These fundamental rules allowed us to save the senders from a huge headache - they no longer needed to figure out which way and through which countries the departure would go in order to correctly apply stamps. The UPU has decided that stamps issued by member countries are adapted for the entire route of departure, subject to the presence of letters of the Latin alphabet.

Encouraged by the success of the development of stamps in many countries, the UPU at the Second World Postal Congress in 1878 in Paris decided to use stamps and only stamps as a certificate of payment. But the decision caused a great resonance and seemed short-sighted, because the use of stamps was a very inefficient tool for large senders.

It took several years for postal operators to create replacement technology. In 1889, Josef Baumann demonstrated the first stamping device, similar to the stamp , to the Bavarian postal authorities, which rejected his offer. Later he improved the algorithm of the machine and even received a patent on January 5th, 1900, but not a single technology received mail approval.

The first franking machine, which printed on a paper envelope indicating the mark of payment by the postal services customer , was designed by Karl Uchemann and manufactured by the Norwegian company Krag in 1903.

Each of the machines allowed to print with a fixed equivalent in the 5th Danish Era and received consent for use by the Norwegian Post Office on June 15, 1903. Four franking machines were used in post offices, three in private companies. However, in the near future they began to be seized - the latter was seized on January 2, 1905.

Mechanization of the postal industry


Since 1902, Arthur H. Pitney has designed a series of mechanical franking machines without receiving any approval from the US Post. Only after joining forces with Walter H. Bowes did they successfully present in 1920 a franking machine for the 1st Class Model M items with the ability to adjust the print date.

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The founders of the Pitney Bowes, Arthur Pitney and Walter Bowes.

In the same year, at the 7th Congress in Madrid, Spain, the UPU officially recognized the franking machine print as signifying payment and decided that they should only be painted in red.

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Ford Model T. Oh, sorry, Pitney Bowes Model M.

While the Pitney Bowes Model M was able to apply only one print advantage, in 1923 in Germany, Bafra and Anker Werkle formed Francotyp, which was approved for the first franking machines with adjustable print amounts. This was especially necessary during hyperinflation in Germany after the First World War.

Unlike stamps, the franking machine print contains the date of dispatchand is applied irreversibly to the departure. Stamps were usually reused - it was enough to carefully disconnect them and put them on the glue again. To reduce the level of revenue loss from reuse of stamps, postal administrations have introduced a cancellation procedure in which an indicator of use is applied to the stamp. Imprints of franking machines did not require extinction - they contained the date of shipment and they could not be easily copied from one shipment to another. The maximum required from a postal employee was to verify the current date and the date printed on the franc.

Rapid development and industry standardization


A huge number of changes have occurred over the next decade. Mechanical counters began to store mail registers, i.e. the remaining amount available for debit in the form of francs. To “recharge” the machines were taken to the post office for opening and unlocking. This was the main protection against unauthorized use, as autopsy attempts necessarily left material evidence.

It has become common practice to use four mail registers in franking machines
  • AR, Ascending Register , incrementing register. A register that increases each time a print is created for the amount indicated in the search.
  • DR, Descending Register , decreasing register. The register is increased at each reload by the amount of recharge, and decreases each time a print is created by the amount indicated in the print.
  • TS, Total Settings Register , general settings register. The register increases with each recharge by the amount of recharge. At any time, the register shows the amount between AR and DR.
  • PC, Piece Count Register , piece count register. The register is incremented each time a print is produced. The register stores the total number of all prints from the moment of initialization.



Against the backdrop of economic growth, the volume of shipments grew, and postal operators had to increase the level of automation for its service. So Germany turned out to be the first, where a system of postal codes was introduced to increase the speed of sorting and the quality of delivery of items in 1960. In 1963, the U.S. Post showed a system of ZIP codes ( ZIP-code , Zone Improvement Plan, Zoning Improvement Plan), which later became the base of US indices .

In the 1970s, electro-mechanical franking machines appeared on the market, including a microprocessor and the ability to store mail registers in a random access memory (RAM, Random Access Memory). The printing system also developed and allowed to process up to 12,000 items per hour. Users "refueled" their cars using a regular phone. After the identification of the caller and his device, the user reported the amount and entered the code received from the operator. The franking machine checked the entered code and unlocked the amount offline. This allowed us to get rid of annoying trips to the post office.

Internet changes the rules of the game


The boom in personal computers and office printers has revolutionized. At the end of the 1980s, using modems already built into franking machines, the download amount was downloaded via the telephone network and a secure channel from a remote server directly. This turned out to be much safer than verbal transfer of codes for recharge.

The next generation of franking machines was electronic. These machines used digital printing technology instead of the traditional use of mechanical stamps. In 1991, Francotyp-Postalia for the first time introduced the T1000 digital franking machine equipped with thermal transfer technology (thermal transfer printing system).

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T1000, the first electronic franking machine.

Digital printing technology made it possible to control the contents of each print of the franking machine and apply it at tremendous speed. When inkjet technology began to spread in the 90s, it also found application in franking equipment.

While the market was trying to replace expensive highly specialized devices with personal computers, postal administrations were seriously worried about the increasing number of counterfeits and print manipulations. Forging the fact of payment for the shipment with a scanner and printer again became extremely simple, therefore, many postal operators obliged to use fluorescent paint to print.

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