1928 New Zealand KGV On Cover With Late Fee

I had never seen a late fee postal marking before (though maybe that just shows my ignorance?)



I must admit I am a sucker for postal markings on cover.
The envelope is stationery from the Bank of Australasia.

Anyone have any insight into the time frame when this late fee type of cancellation would have been used?

Cheers,
Smauggie

smauggie - this is definitely an interesting cover! I cannot see of any reason for a postal service to mark any mail with a "Late Fee". One possibility is that it contained a payment which when opened by someone in the bank, that person made the decision that a late fee was warranted and applied the marking to indicate to a processor that a late fee was to be charged.

Late Fees were standard practice for a large number of postal administrations. Here is how it would work.

There would be a daily deadline to get mail in before it got shipped off to wherever the mails were to go (a central post office or mail processing center).

The post office was still open for an hour or so after the deadline. If you came into the PO after the deadline time, and asked them to include this in the mail that was to leave that day (and it had not already left) you had to pay a late fee for someone to personally put your letter into the mailbag that was already packed up and ready to be sent off for the day.

The Late Fee is also referred to as Retardo.

I am wondering when the Late Fee service started and ended in New Zealand.

Here is an interesting article concerning postal authorities charging a late fee. This cover may be an example of such?
http://www.hawaiianstamps.com/upuletters.html
you bet me to the punch, smauggie!

smauggie. I have a similar one with the same 'late fee rubber stamped. I'll see if I can find it.

The cancel reads "30 Jul 28 / 5:30 p.m." so there's your time frame. The 1d. stamps are not a connected pair as you might have expected, so one 1d. was added to pay the fee, probably.

And no, "Retardo" was not the clerk's name.

Doug - That is not quite what I meant.

I meant what year did the late fee service begin and when did it end.

Oh. As Gilda Radner would have squeaked, "Never mind..."

I'd like to know the usage dates too, I'd like to know what year this one is.

1936?

Oh, you mean that particular stamp. Yes, 4pm 26 of February, 1936.
I would suspect Late Fee service time frames would be similar for Australia and New Zealand.

I remember seeing a Late Fee letterbox at Spencer Street (now Southern Cross) Station in Melbourne in the early 1970s. The station was, and still is, the terminus for country and interstate trains.

In India, in Victorian times, you didn't have the option of paying a late fee. This cover from Jammu & Kashmir to Amritsar in British India shows a TOO LATE stamp, underneath the POSTAGE DUE stamp



Too late, postage due ... I hope it was worth it for the recipient.

Been looking at that Stamp for 2 years and just assumed it was some type of postal code but now that you mention that it makes total sense.

smauggie, I don't know that this will answer all of your questions, but here is an article from 1963 on Late Fee cancels:

http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/a...tralia-1963/

It is worth a few minutes of your time, if you haven't seen it.

Thank you CJD.