822 days too late!

 

Invalid Use — Charged Postage Due

In the pre-globalization era, postal clerks carefully inspected outgoing mail for fiscal deficiencies.  Here the sender in Dalheim posted a 25c UPU-rate letter to the United States on April 3, 1911, using the 25c G-D Adolphe definitive (p. 11) that had been issued in 1891.  Since the Adolphe definitives had been demonetized as of January 1, 1909 (822 days before this letter was mailed), the clerk properly marked off the stamp in blue crayon, showing its value as “0,” and taxed the letter.  Upon arrival in New York City on April 11th, the tax was shown with an opera glass cancel as 10c due—double the 5c United States UPU rate then in effect.