Thursday, March 17, 2016
Eva's big mail day part 3
And finally a third piece from Eva arrived on the same day. This time a thank you for my contributions to her Wizard of Oz call. This one was franked by the machines multiple times back and front - yet always missing the stamp!
Thanks, Eva, it was great to get this set of letters and postcard all together - and with a beautiful variety of stamps, too. Is the C rate the international rate?
It seems that the cancellation machine did a battle with this envelope! :)
ReplyDeleteThere are two international postage rates, for letters up to 20g (and within the standard sizes):
B - for Europe (including Greenland). Now is 1,15€ (last year: 0,9€)
C - for, they say, "the rest of the world" (that makes me think of the Moon, Mars...). Now is 1,30€ (in 2015: 1€).
Yes, a battle indeed, and I think the envelope won! I noticed there is an A2 rate on Spanish stamps - what does that signify?
DeleteI was scheduling a post for this envelope, and I wrote exactly that: the envelope won! They weren't able to put a postmark on the stamp! :)
DeleteThe A2 postage rate is for letters within Spain that:
-weight from 20g to 50g; or
-weight up to 20g, but "not standardized".
To be standardized ('normalizado') it must be a rectangle, its height 9-12 cm, and length between 14 and 23,5 cm. The maximum thickness to be considered standard letter is 5 mm. They also say that a normalised letter must be white or light colour, and not blue (!).
However, regarding personal letters, they are not very strict with shape or colour or thickness. The most important is always the weight.
Great minds think alike! And thanks for the rate explanation - glad they aren't too picky about personal letters.
DeleteBeautiful drawing, Eva! And great postmark-battle, always love to see these kinds of chase-and-catch-the-stamps struggles of the postmarks!
ReplyDeleteThe other two pieces traveled seamlessly, so it was interesting to see this one's battle.
DeleteThanks, Heleen! :)
Delete