I received this from the Postmaster himself: Postal Bulletin 22193 (11-9-06)
Redeeming International Reply Coupons... Effective November 9, 2006, we are revising Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM) part 372 and Publication 51, International Postal Rates and Fees, to reflect current procedures in our redemption policy for international reply coupons (IRCs) issued before 2002. As of January 1, 2007, customers will no longer be able to redeem IRC's issued before 2002 at U.S. Post Offices. Starting January 1, 2007, retail associates should advise customers to return pre-2002 IRC's to their correspondents in the country of issue for redemption through the postal adminisration that issued the coupon. This policy change is ONLY for IRC's issued by foreign postal administrations----U.S. - origin coupons are NOT affected. This new date of January 1, 2007, revises the date of July 1, 2006, published in the article titled "New IRC Procedures: Redemption of International Reply Coupons at Retail Counters," In Postal Bulletin 22184 (7-6-06, page 28). As noted in that article, the pre-2002 IRC's are approximately 2.5 inches by 4 inches and do not have a barcode on the back, whereas the current versions of the IRCs printed by the Universal Postal Union are approximately 3.75 inches by 6 inches and can be distinguished by the barcode on the back. Images of the fromt and back of both the old and current IRCs are shown on pages 81-82 of this issue of the Postal Bulletin. Folk's, according to this document....why are we trading in our IRC's???? Art WA7NB/VP2MDY ---------------------------------------------------------- Archives http://www.mail-archive.com/dx-news@njdxa.org THE DXR is sponsored by the North Jersey DX Association. Please visit our website: http://www.njdxa.org/index.php scroll to bottom for subscribe/unsubscribe options ----------------------------------------------------------
