Service covers technically are covers sent on official business by delegates and staff to a conference. This is generally expanded to include covers sent to friends and family, provided that the purpose of sending was not purely philatelic. This project will not exclude such philatelic covers, although it is desired to replace such examples with genuine service covers whenever possible. Likewise, examples of unmailed covers are included if no other example is available.
Service covers include the following:
- Covers with an official corner card (CC) for the conference. This would include CC’s for organizing committees, conference secretariat, and country delegations. Covers with these CC’s might still qualify if sent before or after the conference, even from other locations, if on conference business.
- Covers with official CC of agency organizing or attending conference.
- Mailing labels with official CC for the conference.
- Mailing tags with official CC for the conference.
- Covers with origin cachet (OC), dispatching mark (DM) or Free Frank (FF) for the conference.
- Covers with typed or written notation indicating they were sent from conference.
This listing will only show examples of service covers with agency CC’s or with typed or written conference notations if covers with conference CC’s are not available. If different types of conference CC’s are known, each type will be shown. For each type, all known envelope sizes and colors will be listed.
This listing is certainly not complete. If the information listed has errors, or additions or deletions should be made, your input would be welcomed. The list of conferences is certainly not complete. In general, all conferences or conference categories with some type of postal or philatelic recognition are listed. Perhaps others should be added. Most welcome would be color images of service covers which are not listed, or better examples of those that are. Send your input to bclemjr@yahoo.com.
UPU Conference Service Covers
The Universal Postal Union, headquartered in Bern, Switzerland, was founded in 1874. The main bodies are the International Bureau, the Universal Postal Congress (meets about every 5 years), the Council of Administration (CA) (meets annually), and the Postal Operations Council (POC) (meets annually). The CA was preceded by the Executive Council (EC), which was preceded by the Executive and Liaison Committee (CEL). The POC was preceded by the Consultative Committee on Postal Studies (CCPS).
References:
- United Nations Philately, by Arleigh Gaines
- Die UPU-Studie, UNOP Handbuch 79, by Hans Paikert
- UPU documents and websites
