The Sixteen-cent Prexie

Book rate use

The fourth class book rate was eight cents for the first pound plus four cents for each additional pound or fraction thereof from January 1, 1949 until August 1, 1958. The library rate was four cents for the first pound and one cent per additional pound or fraction thereof from January 1, 1949 until January 7, 1968.

This label was on a package mailed circa 1952 (if the 52 in the form number is any indication) by the Kansas State Library, but does not contain the words "Library Rate." The package could have held between two and three pounds of books at the book rate or thirteen pounds of books at the library rate.

There is no doubt about which rate is being used here, and since the same person is being sent a similar package, that would seem to settle which of the possible rates was being used for the first example. Incidentally, the form numbers at the bottom of the library labels are not the same in the two examples, the bottom one having 2-54-5M in place of 3-52-2M. This could imply that the second one was used in or after 1954.

Film could be sent by book rate as of July 30, 1953. Film weighing two to three pounds would have cost eight cents for the first pound and four cents for each additional pound or fraction of a pound, as above, for a charge of sixteen cents. The rate schedule changed on August 1, 1958 to one that would not have produced sixteen cents for any combination.

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