Station letter
A station letter or a station consignment was a special form of dispatch for letters that were posted by the sender in the station directly to the rail mail car and were to be received by the recipient immediately after the train arrived at the destination station.
With a ruling of May 25, 1874, this form of dispatch was introduced in the Reichspost and a precise design specification for the envelope was introduced. This included the lettering station letter, the red frame on the front of the envelope and the sender's information. The stamps were canceled by rail postmarks . Among other things, texts from news offices to newspaper editors were conveyed separately, as can be seen from the note “Do not put in the mailbag !”.
A monthly fee of 4 thalers was charged for the daily collection of a letter from a sender to a recipient from a specific train. The postage for the normal letter was added daily.
As of June 1, 1889, station letters are the subject of the postal regulations , they may weigh a maximum of 250 g. In addition to the usual postage, a monthly fee of RM 12 must be paid. Since April 1, 1900, if the carriage is to be carried out for periods shorter than a month, this fee has been reduced to 4 marks per week or part of a week. During the period of inflation , these rates rose with it. The fee on November 26, 1923 was 2,400 or 800 billion marks, on December 1, 1923 again 12 or 4 marks, and on October 1, 1925 increased to 18 or 6 marks. On March 1, 1946, doubled to 36 and 12 marks respectively, only to change to 120 and 50 marks by April 1, 1989.
In the British zone, station letters were generally accepted on September 11, 1947, and in 1949 with West Berlin. According to this, the station letter service is unlimited in the American and British zones as well as between the two zones. With the French zone on April 1, 1948. The station letter from the western zones to the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) or East Berlin was not permitted. In the Soviet Zone, only the postage fee had to be paid. On March 1, 1963, the course letter replaced the previous "station letter ". On August 31, 1989, course letters were replaced by the form of mailing Datapost .
Another service was the newspaper station letters . This service lasted until March 1, 1963.
literature
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Federal Ministry for Post and Telecommunications (Ed.)
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Concise dictionary of the postal system :
- 2nd completely revised edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1953; P. 71
- 1st supplement to 2nd edition, 1956;
- 3rd completely revised edition, 1st volume A – F, Berlin, 1971; P. 177 (reference to course letter )
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Concise dictionary of the postal system :