Page 22 - Prepaid Reply Cards

2.5 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT: MANDATORY ACCEPTANCE

1892: UPU DECISION ON MANDATORY ACCEPTANCE OF FOREIGN REPLY CARDS LEADS TO RAPID INTERNATIONALISATION
At the 1891 World Postal Congress in Vienna the UPU introduced double cards with prepaid reply as a
mandatory mail format for all member countries. This meant that all members had to accept correctly pre franked
and marked cards as properly franked both ways. Simultaneously more and more countries issued double cards as
postal stationery. Nevertheless, not all member countries issued such cards, due to lack of demand but also
concerns regarding exchange rates.

Reply card from Dutch East India (today Indonesia) used back in 1894 from New York City

Reply card of the Imperial Japanese Post in China used back from Ensdorf (Saar)/Germany in 1904 with an
arrival mark of the German Postal Agency in Tientsin/China.
The Japanese Post in China did not issue dedicated postal stationery for its offices in China until 1910 ©

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