This Day in History October 1, 1869

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By [?] -- Uploaded by W.H. Wögerer (http://www.6130.info/index.php) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In Europe, the mail service charged for letters by weight back in the 1800's, and those fees were collected upon delivery.  The addressees often refused to pay for the letters, so the postal system was not doing well. A professor in Germany suggested that an unsealed, "envelope-less" should be used to correct this problem.  And on this date in 1869, Correspondenz Karte was born--the world's first postcards.  The stamp was already pre-printed and figured in to the cost of the card, so postage was not an issue.  During the first three months of this new correspondence, over two million cards were sold!

It was exactly one year later that the British released its own Correspondence Cards which were half the price of regular letters (half a penny), and over 675,000 were sold on the first day of issue!

For more information, please check out:

http://www.emotionscards.com/museum/historyofpostcards.htm

http://www.ehow.com/postcard-collections/

http://www.libanpostcard.com/postcard_history.html

http://famousdaily.com/history/first-postcards-issued-vienna.html