On the 1st October 2007, the internation reply coupon will be one hundred years old. This is the cause for philatelic magazines to write about its history.
The IRC is bought by the sender at a post office in his country. He put it in his mail to a foreign receiver. In exchange of the IRC, this person will obtain the stamps necessary to send a prioritary letter to the sender.
The collection of IRC is theorically impossible without one postmark, the one from the selling post office. It can be double-cancelled if the receiver keep the coupon without obtaining the stamps, and with a cool postman.
Pierre Sanders tell the history of IRC and give a multi-lingual bibliography in September 2007 Timbres magazine, while Kathleen Wunderly do longly the same in the same month issue of Scott Stamp Monthly, plus the genesis of IRCs and a touch of humour.
After she summarizes the main points of discussion and the initial projects that took place during the 1885-1906 UPU conferences, Mrs Wunderly makes humour : she tried to find IRC in United States now-a-days post offices... A piece of advice : go to a big city post office, where recent or established migrants may be numerous enough to make IRCs an obligated stock in a post office.
For your personal library, Cent ans de coupons-réponses en France 1907-2007 d'André Hurtré ("100 years of reply coupons in France 1907-2007") is published by the Académie de philatélie.
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