Page 67 - Prepaid Reply Cards

4 .3 The UPU rules and regulations for the usage of reply cards were very limited and were not sufficient
REGULATIONS AND PRACTICES –COMMON NON-UPU REGULATED PRACTICES

to cover all aspects and problems the acceptance and mailing of prepaid reply cards posed to a national
postal administration. Thus, besides the level of «official UPU» regulations, practises on national level are
important. Some of these practises were covered by written regulations on country level. But many were just been
according to common sense.

PROOF OF THE INITIAL MAILING OF THE DOUBLE CARD –INCOMING POSTMARK ON THE REPLY PART
One of the key issues was the proof of the initial mailing of the question card. Many administrative provisions
therefore required that a international reply card had to be presented at the post office counter together with the
initial question part. Other regulations required that a datestamp be affixed an incoming postmark on the reply
card upon receipt. However these markings were often forgotten or only applied to the at the front question card.
Also the affixed datestamp on the led to insecurities about the validity of the question part.

Face of the adjacent
question card with
receiving marks from
Zurich (reduced copy)

This Argentinian reply card received an incoming postmark from Zurich to proof, that it has been previously used as
part of an incoming double card.
The reply card was not used; maybe the applied postmark made the receiver that the card was not valid for
remailng again.

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