The Making of Meter Stamps

Meter stamps are a mechanical way to print postage. They came into use shortly after post offices started using adhesive stamps. While the traditional adhesive stamps were convenient and perfect for personal use, they were far too time consuming for postal companies and other large businesses that sent out large amounts of mail each day.

Many countries had tried for years to invent some sort of equipment to print the postage directly on the envelopes. Each time a new method was developed, the post offices would use these new machines on an experimental basis to check their efficiency and quality. Although the first franking machines were used in other countries such as Norway, New Zealand and Great Britain, they were allowed to be used in the United States on first class mailed until twenty years after the first experimental machines were used. The first letter in the United States that was printed with meter stamps was in 1920.

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The best way to describe meter stamps is as a receipt of a prepayment fee to use the mail or postal system. The United States has three different types of postal receipts for the United Postal Service: adhesive postal stamps, postal stationery and meter stamps. Recently, there has also been the addition of computer stamps. Meter stamps are made on a Government-licensed postage meter that imprints the amount of postage required. The postage meter can be set at whatever amount is required for the particular type of mail.

Whether the business is sending out a first class letter or a package of certain weight, meter stamps will print out whatever amount of postage is required. You enter the correct amount of postage that's required and a small adhesive postage sticker will be printed. A more efficient way is to stick the envelopes in the postage meter where the meter stamps are automatically printed on the envelope. Meter stamps from postage meters can only be used by the licensed user that is assigned to that particular meter number, which appears on the meter stamps.

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Businesses usually use meter stamps because they are much more convenient than purchasing hundreds of individual postage stamps and manually putting them on each item to be mailed. Companies that use meter stamps have found that they offer efficiency to the company, making it quicker than taking the mail to the post office unstamped. The businesses purchase a certain dollar amount from the post office, which is credited into the postage meter. When the company has used up that dollar amount, the postage meter will no longer function until more postage is added.

Many people believed that meter stamps were unattractive, so recently there have been different designs added to meter stamps. When businesses purchase postage meters, they have a choice of which style of meter stamps they would like to use.

As opposed to collecting stamps, many individuals are heavily into the habit of collecting meter stamps. There are even collector website out there. Some of these collectors carry hundreds of different types and styles of meter stamps.