The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 1920–1929
Pitney Bowes' 1920 Model M printed postage in the mailroom and invented metered mail
Arthur Pitney and Walter Bowes merged in 1920 to sell the Model M, the first commercial postage meter; USPS approved it in September and use began in November.
Pitney Bowes
the move
Before 1920, a company mailroom bought stamps by the sheet, licked them onto thousands of envelopes, and guarded the supply against theft — slow, messy and easy to lose money in. The US Post Office wanted 'mechanical stamps' that could print postage instead.
Inventor Arthur Pitney and promoter Walter Bowes merged their companies in April 1920 to form the Pitney-Bowes Postage Meter Company, launching with the Model M meter. In March 1920 the US House had passed the first bill authorizing mechanical stamps on first-class mail.
The Model M printed the two-cent postage and the cancellation mark directly on each envelope, while two sealed registers kept a self-checking account of postage printed; an automatic lock-out prevented the meter from running past its prepaid balance — the key to stopping theft.
On September 1, 1920, Pitney Bowes became the first postage meter formally approved for use throughout the US postal system, and the machine entered commercial service in Stamford, Connecticut, on November 16, 1920.
why it works
- Printing postage in the mailroom removed the stamp supply chain and its theft risk.
- Sealed registers and lock-out made the machine its own accountant.
- One machine handled both postage and cancellation, halving handling steps.
- Postal approval gave Pitney Bowes a regulated near-monopoly to build on.
what transfers
Move the payment step into the customer's workflow: if the machine can meter itself, the mailroom stops being a bottleneck and the vendor owns a recurring relationship.
what came after
Metered mail became a global industry: Royal Mail signed a partnership in 1922, Canadian Post in 1923, and Pitney Bowes followed with the first multi-denominational meter in 1929. The company grew into a mailing and logistics technology giant, and the Model M was later named an ASME International Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark.
references
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