Not sure about this one, but quoting from Johnson and Peet's rates book: Letter rate airmail to Argentina from 7th August 1940 to September 1945 was 3s 6d per ½oz by air all the way, or 2s 3d per ½oz by sea to New York and from there by air. Neither of these would give a multiple of 10s. (The 5s rat...

ears -- thank you, very useful.

earsathome, could you post the URL for the Deegam book download? I'd certainly like to get some information on the immediate pre- and post-decimal versions.

To be honest, I've always thought it looked more green than blue too -- but the colour seems to be quite consistent across examples so I don't think it's a colour changeling.

The CBPS book is a 'Postal Stationery Simplified' -- so it doesn't go into too much detail. The original 1970 book does indeed list RP6 (1878-9) as '2d blue (shades)' and RP13 (1883-5) as '2d blue (greenish blue-blue-ultramarine-slate)'. You do see that (very) greenish blue shade quite regularly on ...

That's exactly why it was issued -- there was a fairly short-lived 3d postcard rate to Australasia, and examples of correct use are indeed rare. I have seen them, although I don't have one (although I do have a 2d postcard uprated with a 1d stamp). Unfortunately, I don't have the dates handy!

Just to add my 2d's worth to this -- I'd like a simple guide to these also to interpret my GVI-on-cover items that are military mail. Come on chaps, anyone got any ideas?

Hi Theo -- sorry I didn't notice this before! It's an inland insured cover, which basically meant paying a higher registration fee than the basic, so the registration rates (from 1921) were as follows: 3d basic for up to £5 cover 4d for up to £20 cover then 1d per additional £20 cover to a maximum o...

http://www.gbps.org.uk/boards/images/transferred/553_1.jpg Theo: late fees on registered letters were higher than for non-registered -- often substantially so -- because of the extra paperwork and direct staff attention required at a time when the clerks were rushing to get the mail prepared for di...

Annoyingly, I don't have access to my books at the moment (away from home, and room internet connection down, so posting from elsewhere), but I'm confident about the following from memory. Sources for registration being included in the insurance fee -- James Mackay's " Registered Mail of the Br...

Yes, Theo is correct -- 5d for the first £12 registration included , 2½d for each subsequent £12 (up to a limit of £120 at this date, charges became 4d/2d and a £400 limit in 1906, from memory). It's definitely not advice of delivery. There's absolutely no indication of such -- there would be a prom...

http://www.gbps.org.uk/boards/images/transferred/468_1.jpg http://www.gbps.org.uk/boards/images/transferred/468_2.jpg This is a cut-and-paste from some info I posted to the Mulready group: Basically, Parliamentary Notices relating to forthcoming legislation had to be sent out by 15th December each ...

I'd agree with Alexios -- the rate was 2½d per half-ounce. Actually, the trick with interpreting rates is not to get hung up on X being "the" rate to Y destination, when it's really only the basic rate for the first weight step. While that rate would cover the majority of items, lots of ma...

The limit of insurance would have been the lower of the maximum allowed by the sending country and the maximum allowed by the destination country, I would think. So in this case either £400 or whatever the German limit was -- according to my 1933 PO Guide the limit TO Germany was £400 also (although...