Page 3 - Prepaid Reply Cards

1 The major aim of the question and reply card combination, was to allow the receiver of the initial
STRUCTURE OF A DOUBLE CARD WITH ATTACHED REPLY PART

question card to facilitate a swift reply by providing a prepaid reply portion. This issue was ultimately
solved by using the «double card» format, where the reply card was annexed to the question part.

GENERAL STRUCTURE
In general, double cards consist of two adjacent single postcards, one the question part and one the prepaid reply
part. The sender of the original double card paid the «double» postage covering both ways using either a postal
stationery card with a value imprint or a card with adhesive postage stamps. Each part of the double card had to
be franked at the simple postage rate for an international rate postcard. The question part had to bear the
inscription «Carte postale avec réponse payee» in French – the official UPU language – (Postcard with paid
reply) and the reply part «Carte postale réponse» (Reply postcard) or «Carte postale réponse payee» (Paid reply
postcard).

Face of the adjacent
question card
(reduced copy)

Unsevered
Bulgarian double
card.
Sent from Varna
to Constantinople
in 1897 and
returned via the
Austrian Postal
Agency in 1898

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