Postage meter
machine for printing proof of postage payment
A postage meter or franking machine is a mechanical device used to create and apply physical evidence of postage (or franking) to mailed items. Postage meters are regulated by a country's postal authority. A postage meter imprints an amount of postage, functioning as a postage stamp, a cancellation and a dated postmark all in one. The meter stamp serves as proof of payment and eliminates the need for adhesive stamps.
History
Since the issuance of adhesive stamps in 1840, postal officials have been concerned about security against stamp theft and how to process mail in a timely fashion. One solution was a postage stamp affixing machine, introduced in the 1880s.
The earliest record of a franking machine was by Frenchman Carle Bushe who in 1884 obtained a British Patent for a device that would print a stamp on an envelope and record postage via a counting device. However, Bushe's device is not known to have existed, and the idea was not pursued. The first franking machine known to have been placed into use was a coin operated machine invented by Charles A. Kahrs. It was installed in the lobby of the General Post Office in Christiana, Norway, on August 24, 1900, but was removed in December that same year.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Postage meter” as machine for printing proof of postage payment. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as machine for printing proof of postage payment. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q387295. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1840, 1884 and 1900.
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This entry incorporates text from “Postage meter” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.