Our most recent meeting of the New York Chapter USPCS took place on October 12, with Wade Saadi speaking on “Parcel Post Postage Due, Rates and Uses – Part I.” As Wade pointed out, his gold medal winning exhibit was the first to cover the postal history of this unusual set of postage stamps, that were initially issued to collect postage due on parcel post packages. As with the parcel post stamps themselves, the use of these parcel post postage due (PPPD) stamps were first limited to just parcel packages, but beginning July 1, 1913, these stamps could be used as regular postage due stamps for other types of mail.
After first reviewing the title page and introduction to his exhibit, Wade showed examples of covers used in various situations requiring the collection of postage due. These included: use of bisect of 2 cent PPPD stamp (to pay one cent postage due); cover with two parcel post stamps and two PPPD stamps; two cent PPPD stamp used on building advertising cover; examples of PPPD stamps used (illegally) to pay regular postage; and two 5 cent PPPD stamps used to pay the registry fee.
Some of the most eye-catching items showed the use of multiples of PPPD stamps, including a spectacular cover with 8 copies of the one cent PPPD stamp on the front and a plate block of 10 one cent stamps on the back!
While the 1, 2, 5 and 10 cent PPPD stamps are considered scarce on cover, the use of the 25 cent value is very rare. Amazingly, Wade showed a fair number of examples of the 25 cent stamp used on cover including: vertical pair on partial wrapper; single used on “top of stack” cover; pair used on “top of stack” business reply cover; and pair used of “top of stack” post card.