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Exit 1999 - Welcome 2000
In the first edition of "Letter of the Month" in the new millennium a letter is shown with a complete strip of the first personalized stamps of Switzerland.
The letter is sent from Switzerland to Holland and correctly franked with Fr. 1,80, the foreign letter rate for B-Post of the second weight.
On the front right below two different sorting markings are printed at arrival by the Dutch sorting center for incoming foreign letters .
The stamps are canceled on January 1, 2000 with the special first day of the millennium postmark of Neuchatel. For this occasion Neuchatel was chosen because the zip code of the office matched with the year 2000.
To celebrate the year 2000 the Philatelic Service of Switzerland presented their customers an innovative service which allowed stamps to be personalized by printing a photographic portrait and a personal greeting or message next to the stamps. The stamps have been printed in mini-sheets with four strips, each strip containing two blank tabs between the outside left en the outside right stamp. For each order the tabs were individually printed by Xerox digital color printers.
Herewith the Swiss Post was, after Australia, the second Philatelic Bureau in the world, who offered this service.
On the Swiss stamps also text was allowed, on the Australian stamps only a photograph of one or more persons.
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