International Postage Dues rarity - Pence basis tax calculation: 21 July 1949 postmarked surface mail printed matter cover on imprinted bank postal stationary, sent from Barclays Bank in CAPETOWN South Africa to the bank's branch in HAIFA; franked 1½ pence & tied by single strike of the local postmark. The cover is not endorsed as "printed matter" (although it was sent unsealed per printed matter regulations) and the South African post office regarded it as a short-paid overseas bound letter, under paid by 1½d for the 3d postage rate, marking it for postage dues tax - but didn't use the standard international method of "gold centimes", rather it tied the front with a domestically denominated 3d taxe mark indicating a tax of twice the deficiency. In this period of the gold centimes method the exchange rate between gold centimes and pence was 6.66, which would normally have yielded a postage dues charge of "20 gold centimes" for a 3 pence tax, which the receiving postal administration (here Israel's) would then have converted to its local currency based on the gold centimes exchage rate with it.

In the event, in Israel the Haifa post office converted the 3d tax to 13 mils (blue crayon manuscript in Hebrew) based on the existing currency exchange rate of 4.17 mils per pence (South Africa�s currency was pegged at parity to the British until the former�s decimalization in 1961) - yielding a postage dues charge of 12.5 mils, rounded up to 13m (as the lowest denominator of the postage dues stamps was 3m) & levied on 23 Aug using 3m & 10m 1st postage dues series franks. Had the gold centimes method been used here instead the charge would have come to 20 mils, based on the period exchange rate (at parity) of 1m = 1g ctm. Subsequently in September the British Pound and all currencies linked to it, including Israel's, was devalued affecting in turn all the exchange rates cited here. For more information see the Postage Dues article in JerusalemStamps Bulletin #1.

Very rare Israeli postal history as the only known instance of Pence-based taxation used on international mail to Israel & charged on that basis. One vertical fold.


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