In the days before Stamps...

Would you read my blog if YOU had to pay to receive it? NO!!  Don’t worry, I take no offense, I wouldn’t pay to read either!  Before 1840’s if someone sent you a letter, the recipient had to PAY to accept it, and the cost was determined by the distance it came and the number of pages (that’s why the style Cross-Wrote came about - bad handwriting takes on a whole new meaning!).  Rowland Hill had the brilliant idea to reform the postal service. If they could guarantee a uniform payment collected at the origin then the process of sending and receiving letters would became something many more people could do, and did.  We’ve all heard of the name Penny Post, and now we know where and why it came to be.  Within a certain area it cost 1 Penny to post a letter and the stamp was evidence that it had been paid.  Stamps were an engraved picture of the head of Queen Victoria because it was the hardest thing to forge.

Since then, the cost of postage has been creeping up and up. Increasing our frustration in figuring out, in today's world of internet, if it's even feasible to keep the postal services going. From what I understand they've privatized the postal services in the UK.   I won’t lead you down a rabbit hole… but did want to state that the USA conveniently uses “forever” stamps, the UK still does not.  I am transported back in time living with the frustration of finding a post office to appease my epistolary habit.  An average letter costs $2.00+ to mail to the USA.  I suggest, you keep reading my blog for free until they figure out a way to collect!