Postal cards are

postal stationery A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or Newspaper wrapper, wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage ...

with an imprinted stamp or indicium signifying the prepayment of postage. They are sold by postal authorities. On January 26, 1869, Dr.

Emanuel Herrmann Emanuel Alexander Herrmann (24 June 1839 in Klagenfurt, Austria13 July 1902 in Vienna) was an Austrian national economist. He is considered the decisive last in an international line of inventors of the postal card. Life and work After graduati ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

described the advantages of a ''Correspondenz Karte''. By October 1, 1869 the world's first postal card was produced by Austria-Hungary.Van Gelder, Peter J.; ''The Collectors' Guide to Postal Stationery'', A Squirrel Publication (1997) They caught on quickly. By the end of 1870, Great Britain, Finland, Switzerland and

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Province of Hohenzollern, Hohenzollern, two other histo ...

joined the countries issuing postal cards. In the United States, they were first produced in 1873.Bussey, Lewis E., Ed.; ''United States Postal Card Catalog'', United Postal Stationery Society, 2010, 248 pages. A complete and authoritative look at U.S. postal cards. Some of the forms taken by postal cards include the regular single card which may be commemorative or definitive, attached message-reply cards,

airmail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be th ...

postal cards, and official postal cards used for official government business with a "penalty for private use". To the post office, there were positive advantages to postal cards as opposed to correspondence in

envelope An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin, flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as a letter (message), letter or Greeting card, card. Traditional envelopes are made from sheets of paper cut to one o ...

s. The cards were lighter and less bulky than letters and they were all the same size. The result was that they occupied less than one third of the space required by the same number of letters. To the public there were also advantages. They were simple and cheap making them an instant success. Britain had a half-penny rate to begin with. The U.S. "penny postcard" rate lasted through 1951. Presumably for the purpose of getting a prompt reply, a sender was given the opportunity to pay for postage ''both'' ways with an attached message-reply card, first introduced by Germany in 1873. Other European countries quickly followed suit. Spain furnished message-reply cards to her Colonies: Cuba (1880), Philippines (1889) and Puerto Rico (1898).Littrell, Robert, Ed.; ''Postal Cards of Spanish Colonial Cuba, Philippines and Puerto Rico'', UPSS, 2010; The U.S. issued them first in 1892. Message-reply cards were attached

tête-bêche In philately, ''tête-bêche'' (French language, French for "head-to-tail", lit. "head-to-head") is a joined pair of Postage stamp, stamps in which one is upside-down in relation to the other, produced intentionally or accidentally. Like any pa ...

and likely to be perforated or rouletted to facilitate separation once in the hands of the recipient. The recipient could then tear them apart and use the prepaid reply card to correspond with the original sender. Normally the message card would be identical to the reply card except with the distinction of having additional language such as "WITH REPLY CARD" or "''La otra tarjeta es para la respuesta''" or "''Carte Postale Réponse''" or similar words to distinguish the two. In the U.S., message and reply cards have been identical since 1968. Nowadays the term postal card is clearly differentiated from the term '

postcard A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. In some places, one can send a postcard f ...

', which designates cards prepared by private companies and which do not have prepaid franking. (Postcards are readily available at commercial outlets, the addition of an adhesive stamp is required to mail them and they are frequently illustrated with pictures or printed advertisements; they are ''not'' considered postal stationery any more than a plain envelope or sheet of parcel wrapping are.) Historically, however, this terminological distinction was not evident: in the UK the term 'post card' was used for what was called in the US a 'postal card'.

References

External links

Postal Cards and Post Cards History
Mostly picture postcards, but some information and illustrations of postal cards.

Comprehensive Cuban collection
Postal Card -Carte Postale -Dopisnica
: My collection {{Authority control Philatelic terminology Postal stationery Postcards

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Further reading

External links