Our Mail Bag blog posts feature letters and postcards that members send to us at LetterMo to share with the community. You can submit content to the Mail Bag by following the instructions at Mail-In Submissions.
Our latest mail-in entry to the LetterMo blog comes from Allen, who writes to us on his new typewriter and mailed it in on an old “Domestogramme,” an old post office stationary product, where the stationary folded into its own letter and included pre-printed postage.
Hi Adam,
I’m typing this from Calgary, AB on my new to me typewriter. Still learning how to use it, it’s very different to a computer keyboard. It also feels right to use it for writing on this “domestogramme”; I piked it up at a flea market probably more than 10 years ago. It’s amazing to me that it used to cost only 8¢ to mail a letter anywhere in the country compared to $1.24 today.
Another surprising thing for me was being able to buy brand new typewriter ribbon. Didn’t think it would still be manufactured, I guess typewriters are still utilized more often than expected (says the guy typing on one lol).
For anyone who’s wondering, the typewriter I’m using (and making frequent typos with) is a brother activator 800T. It’s in great shape, just missing its cover since it’s portable. I think it was made in the 70s; I wish stuff was still made this durable.
Learning about the domestogramme was a bit interesting. It’s trademark was registered in 1973 and ended in 1989; maybe it was no longer cost effective? Seems like such a short time for it to be around, especially since people were still actively writing letters. It’s sibling the aerogramme lasted longer until 2006; there are countries that still issue them like Australia and Hong Kong (as of 2024.)
Hopefully you found this as interesting to read as it was for me to research it.
Take care,
AllenPS. I forgot to mention, that there is a misspelling under the pre-printed postage. Should say “postes” but the s is missing at the end (ironically, I misspelled it myself.) Apparently, domestogrammes with this misspelling are some fo the first issued. Later issues had the word corrected.