The Twenty-one-cent Prexie
Registered penalty, third step indemnity, extra declared value
Registry with indemnity from $25.01 to $50.00 cost twenty cents from July 1, 1932 until March 26, 1944. When the declared value exceeded the indemnity provided, but by less than $50, the cost was an extra one cent.
This cover was sent by the Post Office Department in August, 1939. No postage would have been payable, but the fee for registry would have been. Fifty dollars indemnity cost only twenty cents, but there is no reason to believe that the Post Office Department would have needed to overpay postage - if it didn't have the proper stamps, who would? The most logical explanation for the extra penny is that the contents were worth slightly more than $50, and since the next step indemnity would have cost five cents, it was most economical to pay one more cent for declaring extra value instead.
