Page 59 - Prepaid Reply Cards

4.2 REGULATIONS AND PRACTICES –SPECIFIC UPU REGULATIONS FOR REPLY CARDS

USE OF DOUBLE‐CARDS
UPU regulations clearly state that double cards should be used. This means the reply card had to be attached to a
question card initially. Still, not all member countries did issue respective double cards. Thus privately printed or
improvised cards were used.

Question face of an improviseddouble card with two single cards sawn together. The card was send from German
occupied Poland (nee Generalgouvernement) to neutral Sweden in 1941 bearing a postage of 32 Groschen (instead of the
necessary 30). The Generalgouvernement did not issue any double cards. Reply cards were an important means to
communicatefor persecuted groups like the Jewish population.

Reply part of an improviseddouble card. The note «résponse payee» is manuscript and the card clearly shows a sewing
track on top. The card was prepaid with three local overprints issued in the German Soviet zone and an additional 1 kopek
was added to pay the return. It remains uncertain if the prepayment was not accepted or if the sender was insecure
about the validity of the German stamps ©.
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