The Ten-cent Prexie
The portrait of the tenth President of the United States, John Tyler, is featured on the ten-cent value of the Prexies. It came from a bust in the rotunda of the Virginia State Capitol Building. Ten-cent Prexies were issued in sheet and horizontal coil formats.
Sheet stamps were first released on September 2, 1938. A total of 3,849,605,900 were issued from then through 1958. Horizontal coil stamps were issued January 20, 1939. Total production for the coil format through 1955 was 22,065,500.
Ten cents was an airmail rate to a number of countries during the 1938 - 1960 period. Before the uniform airmail rates of November 1, 1946 this included Cuba, Haiti, Bermuda, Jamaica, and various other Caribbean islands, as well as Mexico. After November 1, 1946 this rate was extended to all of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Ten cents was also the airmail rate to and from Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guantanamo Bay from 1929 until early 1945, the Canal Zone from April 1945 through September of 1946, and to Newfoundland in 1939 and from late 1946 until confederation with Canada in 1949. It also covered airmail between Guam and the Philippines and American Samoa to West Samoa from late 1946 until mid-1961, and there was an unpublished rate of ten cents for airmail between Midway and Hawaii from April of 1937 until October, 1942. Privately produced aerogrammes were charged ten cents postage from early April of 1947 through June of 1961.
The international postcard airmail rate was ten cents from mid-1954 through mid-1961.
Other possible solo international uses include supplementary mail to a UPU country, a surface letter to Australia with air service within Australia, the commercial papers minimum charge, and the small packet minimum charge.
Domestic postal use of the ten-cent Prexie can be found on second class, transient and fourth class mail. Other uses were to pay special delivery charges on otherwise free mail. Another use is to pay the fourth class book rate or the fourth class book rate with third class enclosures. Late in the period it covers the return receipt fee on official registered mail from Washington, DC, and quite late, third class postage.
Several other fees were sometimes paid by a solo ten-cent Prexie. The most common use is the Customs clearance fee. Other possibilities are the penalty for early redemption of a postal savings certificate, the fee for cancellation or alteration of C.O.D. charges, the minimum fee for a Senders Statement and Certificate of Bulk Mailing or the fee for adding return receipt service after mailing.
Multiple charges can also result in use of a solo ten-cent prexie. And certificates of mailing for multiple items can result in any value of solo Prexie being used.
Finally, the stamp is known used illegally as a revenue.