Avis de Reception Documentation

We occasionally see registered international mail endorsed “A.R.” or “Avis de Réception,” indicating the sender’s request that the delivery office return a receipt documenting delivery of the item. This service became available from the inception of the Treaty of Berne in 1875. What we seldom see, however, is the card with which delivery of the item was documented, and what we almost never see is the related receipt the sender received for the registered item. Here are examples of both.

 

The sender’s receipt documents registry of Article No. 842 at the Evanston, Illinois post office on August 25, 1926, payment of the 15-cent registry fee, and that the sender requested a return receipt (purple single line endorsement: AVIS DE RECEPTION).

 

The back of the return receipt card shows the letter’s arrival at Luxembourg-Ville, September 4, 1926, and its arrival at the delivery office, Dommeldange [Eich], on the ensuing Monday, September 6, 1926. On the same day, the addressee signed the card, acknowledging receipt of the registered letter. The front of the card shows that it was returned that same day from Dommeldange back to Chicago, Illinois.