Postage due stamp: a postage stamp used to collect postal charges from the addressee in cases where a mail item is sent with insufficient postage or with no postage paid; or for mail items whose delivery must be paid for specifically by the addressee. Postage due stamps were distinctive in that they were not sold to the public; instead, postal employees affixed them to correspondence on which the sender had paid less than the current rate, and the surcharge was collected from the recipient upon delivery. In the USSR, postage due stamps were issued until 1925.
The first Soviet postage due stamps, in nine denominations, were issued on January 1, 1924. On the first RSFSR stamps depicting a hand with a sword cutting a chain, a carmine (brick-red) and an orange-red overprint with the text "Postage Due" and a new denomination was applied.
In Russia after the end of the Civil War, the banknotes in circulation rapidly lost value, so the postal authorities had to revise and set new postal rates very frequently. In 1922 alone, postal rates in the country changed 6 times, and in 1923, 9 times.
Naturally, in the absence of well-developed mass media, the many millions of people using postal services sometimes did not know about rate changes, or learned of them far from immediately. In addition, the population possessed a large quantity of various types of postage stamps issued by the Imperial post, by local self-government bodies and governments, and by counterrevolutionary formations. By that time there were also many canceled Soviet postage stamps that people sometimes continued to use when sending mail. All of this contributed to an increase in the amount of postage-due mail.
The time when the first postage due stamps were issued coincided with one of the most important periods in the history of our country: the transition from the policy of "War Communism" to the New Economic Policy. The monetary reform of 1922–1923 gave the country a stable chervonets ruble, which ensured rapid growth of the entire national economy and made it possible to plan its further development confidently and successfully.
In order for the postal service to be profitable and generate revenue for the state, a new rate was established on a gold basis, along with strict discipline in paying for postal services. One such measure, which actively helped reduce attempts to use the postal service free of charge, was the introduction of the first postage due stamps. They were introduced on a trial basis in Moscow and Leningrad. The choice of these cities was not accidental: it was precisely here that an enormous amount of postage-due correspondence was concentrated, including mail addressed to various institutions and organizations.