This photo of an envelope from 1959 perfectly shows addressing a letter Before There Were Zip Codes!

First, I have to shout out my sincere thanks to Debbie, one of My Three Muses here at AnchoredScraps for sharing this photo from her collection of family mail archives yesterday. Furthermore, the postage for first-class mail at the time was four cents for first-class mail! 

Next, if we were to have a game of snail mail zip code trivia I would ask do you know what year Zip Codes were first introduced here in the U.S.?  Of course, I’m finding myself wanting to explore if there is there an equivalent type of zip code identifying system in Canada, in England, or in Australia?  Are they called Postcodes in Australia? In addition, I did find a listing of the United Kingdom – postal codes interactive search page.  It does seem to have a country pull-down list including for all of the above listing countries.

It was on July 1, 1963, when the nationwide introduction of then non-mandatory five-digit zip codes began.   And it was in 1983 it expanded to Zip+4 by the U.S. Postal Service.

Previously, we have had several posts over the past six years here featuring Mr. Zip! In 2013 Mr. Zip was celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Zip Code System. You may enjoy re-reading or if new to my blog seeing them for the first time.

Earlier today it was a joy to be at the Wilmington Philatelic Society Christmas in July picnic and while there one of the members gave me an envelope cachet, and it too has no zip code!

Thank you again for joining me today. It is hard to believe the month is almost HALF over!!  See you back here on Sunday with a beach snail mail post I can’t wait to share!  See you back here then.

Anchors Aweigh,  

Helen

AnchoredScraps #2107