Bygone Icons

Red-and-blue USPS mailboxes
Red-and-blue USPS mailboxes

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There are 10 comments for this item.

Posted by Bob Matthews at 5:41 am (PDT) on Sun September 25, 2016   
Found a picture of the very neighborhood lampost mailbox I was talking about laughing

Color was olive-green -- a holdover, I believe, of the color of US Army uniforms in the recently concluded World War 2.
Seems olive-green was the Official color of most things US government-related back in those days.

Bronx NY, March 1948

lamppost and mailbox, 1948
image upload no limit

Posted by Steve Oelrich at 1:14 pm (PDT) on Fri September 23, 2016   
There are STILL olive green mailboxes, but they have no slots for mail and are used by carriers as storage while on their routes.
Posted by LoyalTubist at 2:38 pm (PDT) on Wed September 7, 2016   
If you remember, before they were red, white, and blue, they were olive green. I'm not that old and I remember both kinds of mailboxes.
Posted by Bob Matthews at 4:52 pm (PDT) on Wed June 4, 2014   
Re-read my post just now and flashbacked to three forgotten memories. The mini mail drop box attached to the corner lampost in my childhood was there for years in the days of zone numbers.
1. From babyhood being held in a parent's arms so I could drop letters in.
2. Later standing on tiptoes but not yet able to reach. Being lifted up...
3. Standing on tiptoes and reaching it! "You're getting big," someone said.
Posted by Bob Matthews at 3:10 pm (PDT) on Mon April 22, 2013   
This was when you had to write a "Zone Number" in the address between City and State. This was before they invented zip codes. Neighborhoods also had smaller mailboxes attached to the lamp post.
Posted by AliKaplan at 10:14 am (PDT) on Mon April 22, 2013   
We had a mailbox next to the deli in our neighborhood and the kids started throwing stuff in it, some things that are too gross to mention! They finally just took it away.
Posted by Duff at 11:57 pm (PST) on Sat February 9, 2013   
I believe they switched to a single color to save money.
Posted by GlenEllyn at 10:48 pm (PST) on Sat February 9, 2013   
I never understood why they got rid of these - they were quite distinctive. The all-blue ones just don't stand out as well. Oh well, who knows, maybe they'll bring them back some day. You know, everything old is new again...
Posted by Robert J. McKelvey at 2:41 pm (PDT) on Thu September 8, 2011   
I recall when these mail boxes were painted red and blue they were also stenciled, airmail now 5 cents.
Posted by Duff at 6:20 am (PDT) on Wed August 12, 2009   
Not only are they gone, but photos of them seem to be gone. (Some sort of conspiracy...?) This was one of the hardest BBeM images to locate on the Web; I must have spent days searching for it.

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