Hi All,
I recall a discussion on this forum about 2 years ago regarding the color of mailboxes. In the 1950's and 60's, US mailboxes used by the Post Office were green (a kind of khaki). The traffic light discussion got me to thinking. Back in 2010 we took a family vacation to San Francisco. I was walking around Fisherman's Pier when I spotted this....
Yes, although poorly taken, that mailbox on the right is an old green one. I can recall when all outdoor mailboxes were green.
George
Replies sorted oldest to newest
As far as I know those dark olive drab boxes are still in use in urban areas. They are for the footbased carriers to store mail, and not public drop boxes. Those have been blue for a long time and prior to that they had a red top with a blue lower. The use of olive drab for collection boxes ended in 1955, a little before my time.
As far as I know those dark olive drab boxes are still in use in urban areas. They are for the footbased carriers to store mail, and not public drop boxes.
This is correct. IF you noticed the metal is embossed on the Green Box stating Relay Boxes. this is used to store mail from the carrier either to deliver or to drop off at the post office. Mail is NOT light.
Here is the official USPS history of collection box colors:
http://about.usps.com/who-we-a...ction-box-colors.pdf
and here is a resource by our n-scale brethern:
http://www.nscalelimited.com/2...-color-for-your-era/
As an aside, it is fun to note that the famous USPS Eagle was designed in 1970 by Raymond Loewy, the designer who styled the GG1 and the S1 (among other things) for the PRR.
That first link was interesting Pete. I ended up on Wikipedia to find that 1955 date. It looks as if they took the info from that page long document and condensed it down to a paragraph.
Access to this requires an OGR Forum Supporting Membership
