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Postcard Rates 1870-1968

½d vermilion used on the first day for which the postcard rate could be paid with adhesive stamps

The postcard – an open card that could be used to send a short message, at a concessionary postal rate – was first introduced in Austria-Hungary in 1869. The British Post Office adopted the idea the following year.

Initially the only permissible cards were the pre-stamped postal stationery sold by the Post Office, but stamped to order postal stationery cards were allowed from 1872, and ordinary cards franked with adhesives from 1st September 1894 provided that they were of similar dimensions to the official cards (the allowable dimensions are given below).

In periods when the postcard rate was higher than the basic printed matter rate, it was possible to send an item in postcard format at that rate if it bore no more than five words of conventional greetings or "formulas of courtesy" only, or if it qualified as printed matter under one of the other exceptions that allowed some writing (e.g. many commercial documents such as invoices).

Postcards as a special class of inland mail were subsumed into the two-tier post system from 16th September 1968.


Date Rate Min/max size Date Rate Min/max size Date Rate Min/max size
1870
(1 Oct)
½d n/a 1894
(1 Sep)
½d 3¼" x 2¼"
4¾" x 3"
1899
(1 Nov)
½d 3¼" x 2¼"
5½" x 3½"
1906
(1 Nov)
½d 4" x 2¾"
5½" x 3½"
1918
(3 Jun)
1d 4" x 2¾"
5½" x 3½"
1921
(13 Jun)
1½d 4" x 2¾"
5½" x 3½"
1922
(29 May)
1d 4" x 2¾"
5½" x 3½"
1925
(1 Oct)
1d 4" x 2¾"
5⅞" x 4⅛"
1940
(1 May)
2d 4" x 2¾"
5⅞" x 4⅛"
1957
(1 Oct)
2½d 4" x 2¾"
5⅞" x 4⅛"
1965
(17 May)
3d 4" x 2¾"
5⅞" x 4⅛"
1968
(15 Sep)
Last day of separate inland postcard rate