Honour and Privilege Envelopes.

[celgood]

Hi all, this may be basic stuff but just getting into Honour envelopes. Can anyone please tell me when a honour envelope was used as apposed to a privilege one. Under what circumstances was one used instead of the other and who was entitled to use the privilege envelope instead of the honour envelope.
Many thanks --- Chas

[Michael Dobbs]

Chas

Peter Burrows has responded as follows:

[color=maroon]You have opened a can of worms

"During late 1942 the Green honour envelope was redesigned with all the instructions on the left side, and called "Privilege Envelope". Then sometime later possibly early 1944 it was retitled "Army Privilege Envelope"

Is may haven been at the request of the authorities for a clear space to strike the datestamp

The Royal Navy was using the term Privilege from November 1939, but they did not print their redesigned "Royal Navy Privilege Envelope" until later in the war. As the Navy did not use datestamps it is hard to state when they came into use

The Royal Air Force issued their Privilege Envelope on 3rd September 1942 using the old double cross design, and did not issued the redesigned envelope until April 1943

Both designs could be used until new supplies were available"[/color]

I hope this helps, Mike

[celgood]

Hello Mike,
Many thanks for the response from Peter and yourself. The information will indeed be of great help getting a time line on the subject. The information will be of great help in a local competition we have up here in Teesside between our three philatelic clubs - Redcar, Stockton and Middlesbrough. 
Once again thanks  --- Chas