/This intruduction site has been revised 29 Sep 2009,
the list of item normally has been revised more recently
Swedish Taxe Fraction Handstamps (1966-)
The Vienna UPU Congress of 1964 decided to abolish the use of gold centimes in taxe marks, substituting a system of taxe fractions. The country of origin was to mark an underpaid item with a fraction, the numerator (top) being the postage due - usually double the deficiency - in its currency and the denominator (bottom) being its minimum foreign letter rate. The fraction as a whole therefore represented the number of (supposedly standard) letter rates to be charged, and multiplying it by the minimum foreign letter rate in the destination country gave the amount of postage due to be conected on delivery there.  This first system came into use on 1 st January 1966.

Exactly ten years later, following the Lausanne UPU Congress of 1974, the system was changed from "double deficiency" to "deficiency plus fixed handling fee". From 1 st January 1976, the numerator of a taxe fraction was to be the deficiency in every case; the denominator was the minimum foreign letter rate, as before. In the destination country the calculation was done as before, giving the equivalent deficiency, to which a fixed handling fee was added, its value decided by that country within a limit set by the UPU. In more recent days the countries have been more free to calculate the amount due on incoming mail. Sweden for example has from 1 Jan 1984 charged a standard fee for shortpaid items, regardless of the amount missing.

At anyone time, two of the three elements of a country's taxe fraction marks are the same in all cases: the letter "T" for taxe, and the denominator, equal to the minimum foreign letter rate. Only the numerator of the fraction varies, depending on the amount by which an item is underpaid. It has been a common practice for countries to make taxe handstamps containing these two fixed elements, leaving the varying numerator to be written by hand. Sweden, perhaps more than any other country , has used handstamps including the numerators as well, so that manuscript additions have seldom been necessary. This is not surprising, when one bears in mind the wide range of centimes denominations for which it had had taxe handstamps.

 On this page we try to list the different types used. Please send us information if you know of any further items (We are not only interested in unlisted types but also unlisted single items)
Click here to view images of all types with links to complete descriptions
Click here to view a list of all types, with links to complete descriptions
(on this page we list dates when the pages for each type have been last revised.)
 

The basic research work for this study has been made by Michael Furfie (United Kingdom) and has been published in POSTAGE DUE MAIL STUDY GROUP JOURNAL, Number 26, June 2003; ISSN 1368-2911. SSPD is also most grateful to the following postal historians for their valuable contributions to this study: Ulf Fogelberg (Sweden), James Burgeson (USA), Jan Rijnbout (Netherlands), Staffan Andersson (Sweden), Kjell Arvidsson (Sweden), Peter Maurer (Germany), Ken Snelson (Canada), Anders Pleijel (Sweden), Ingvar Larsson (Sweden), Gustaf Ankarcrona (Sweden), Henry Chlanda (USA), Leif Bergman (Sweden), Dietrich Häneke (Germany), Bo Bjerre Jakobsen (Danmark), Georg Bodner (Germany), Günter Wahl (Germany). Dankward Ufer (Germany), Uffe Munch-Andersen (Denmark), Tim Hadley (United Kingdom), R. A. Oates (United Kingdom), Nick Zhu (China), Roland Frahm (Sweden), Charles Peterson (USA), Karl Bertil Wändahl (Sweden)