The US Post Office Department ran a request for proposals in the Courant

03/11/1898 |

Category:

The Courant carried a public notice requesting proposals for “furnishing stamped envelopes and newspaper wrappers” in its classified section today.

More details

Anyone wishing to submit a proposal had to request a blank form of proposal from the US Post Office Department. The blank form would be sent with full specifications and samples of the envelopes and newspaper wrappers.
The process for submitting a proposal was as follows:

Proposals must be securely sealed in an envelope
The envelope must be inscribed “Proposals for furnishing stamped envelopes and newspaper wrappers.
If mailed in, the proposal should be sent to the Third Assistant Postmaster General, Washington, DC.
If delivered in person, it must be handed in before 12 midnight on March 30, 1898.

And then there's this

The Courant also carried a request for proposals for “furnishing adhesive postage stamps” today.
The contract for stamped envelopes would begin on October 1, 1898, and would run through September 30, 1902.

This is the first public notice of a request for proposals for the production of stamped envelopes that I’ve found. Likely a similar notice ran in the Courant in 1874, when the Plimpton Manufacturing Company first won this contract, and then again every four years thereafter.

For the record

The Third Assistant Postmaster General was John A. Merritt.

Sources

Various. “Classified advertisements,” Hartford Courant, March 11, 1898, page 6.

History

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