Customer Support Ruling

Old Letters
Updated February 2005

PS-091 (133.3.4)

This Customer Support Ruling discusses whether the age of documents affects their status as handwritten or typewritten matter that is mailable only at First-Class Mail or Express Mail rates.

At issue is a parcel sent through the mail that contained handwritten letters. The letters varied in age, but none had been written recently.

Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) 133.3.4* prescribes that matter wholly or partially in handwriting or typewriting must be mailed as First-Class Mail or Express Mail, except authorized written additions to Periodicals, Standard Mail, and Package Services.

The classification of handwritten and typewritten documents under section is contingent upon neither the age of the documents, nor on whether they have previously passed through the mails, or are sent individually or in parcels.  Handwritten or typewritten letters and other documents are mailable only at the First-Class Mail or Express Mail rates of postage regardless of when they were produced.  Thus, the package of old handwritten letters was required to be mailed as First-Class Mail.

*See also DMM 233.3, 333.3, and 433.3.

(Signed)
Sherry Suggs
Manager
Mailing Standards
United States Postal Service
Washington DC 20260-3436