German Morgenpost stamps
Tim was kind enough to send me a cover via Morgenpost. Morgenpost is one of the many private postal service providers operating in German markets. So in a sense this is local issue, but 21st century style.
2008 Morgenpost stamp showing a bus (model Citaro 2005)
The postal rate of the 52c stamp above corresponds to mail up to 20g worldwide (in comparison, Deutsche Post charges 70c for same).
As Morgenpost (and other private postal operators) are not members of UPU, they can not be used to send international mail directly. All international mail sent via Morgenpost is actually mailed via Morgenposts partner network (like Netherlands post TNT). Therefore my cover has Port Paye cancels of Netherlands post TNT.
Morgenpost cover - notice the TNT Port Paye cancel on the right corner
Postal services open up in all of Europe Union
Morgenpost is by no means unique as European Union has made a decision to dismantle all national monopolies for mail delivery by year 2011. Some countries (like Germany) are more ahead than others (like Finland).
Opening of services for all may sound like good news, as the postal rates will (very likely) go down and there will be plenty of new stuff to collect for stamp collectors. But things are not so black/white…One of the major concerns is that the newcomers will take the best (=most profitable) parts, and leave the rest for old national posts. This has created somewhat interesting debates – especially in Finland. The Finnish Post is considering (or let’s be hones…threating…) with cutting down mail delivery in rural areas IF such competition arrives. That would be a truly sad day for all finns living outside major cities.
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That’s big problem, open competition vs. national public services.
Here in Argentina there are many private carriers as well, being the bigger ones OCA and Andreani which had issued their own stamps.
But the National Post (a mixed public-private company) claimed that they had been granted a monopoly regarding commemorative stamp issuing, and the private companies had ceased to issue new stamps.
In the link, the fifth cover has been sent by OCA, and has a label that very much resembles a stamp, altough legally it is not.
http://albumdeestampillas.blogspot.com/2009/01/5-formas-de-mandar-una-carta.html
Hi Pablo,
I assume the Argentinian private carrier stamps were valid only in domestic mail?
OCA seems to have a nice online listing of their stamps at http://www.oca.com.ar/filatelia1.asp
I’m glad to see that you received my cover.
It’s interesting to see the TNT cancellation, which is different to the ones I’ve seen before. Normaly they are blue and include a date, so you can see when the cover has reached the Netherlands.
Not all international mail is sent via the Netherlands, but sometimes also via Belgium, Malta, Great Britain and probably other counties.
Deutsche Post still has some kind of privileges, for example there is no VAT (value added tax) for “official” stamps, but for private post stamps. Deutsche Post also don’t allow the private postal companies to use postmarks which are simillar to these of Deutsche Post or to put up their post boxes near to these of Deutsche Post.
It’s somehow strange that the private postal services still can be cheaper. (But on the other hand, many of them only deliver to some regions, especially urban areas, and some are said to pay their employees very low …) And often smaler services exist only a view years, before they merge with bigger services or go bankrupt.
@ Pablo: Interesting to see, that there are private postal services in other counties, too.
Sorry for commenting again, but wasn’t there a barcode label on the cover? Morgenpost usualy puts a barcodelabel on their mail (with the same barcode as on the stamp) that also indicates the partner to which the letter is forwarded. For international mail this is “Sprng” (probably for Spring Global Mail). (For domestic mail there are other codes for partners in different regions of Germany. The partner somtiems puts another label with another barcode and another code for the next destination and so on. But every postal service has it’s own regaultions, so there are many differences.)
Hi Tim,
barcode label was on the back of the cover. And yes, it had inscription “Sprng”.