2-3 Material Not Considered Letters (39 CFR 310.1(a)(7))

Within the meaning of PES, the following forms of communication are not considered letters:

1. Telegrams.
2. Financial instruments such as checks, drafts, promissory notes, bonds, stock certificates, securities, title policies, and insurance policies, when shipped to, from, or between financial institutions. For checks and drafts, financial institutions means banks, savings banks, savings and loan institutions, credit unions, and their offices, affiliates, and facilities. For other instruments, “financial institutions” means institutions performing functions involving the bulk generation, clearance, and transfer of such instruments.
3. Abstracts of title, mortgages, and other liens, deeds, leases, releases, and articles of incorporation.
4. Papers filed in lawsuits or formal quasi-judicial proceedings, and orders of courts and quasi-judicial bodies.
5. Newspapers and periodicals.
6. Books and catalogs consisting of 24 or more bound pages with at least 22 printed, and telephone directories.
7. Matter sent from a printer, stationer, or similar source to a person ordering such matter for use as his or her letters.
8. Letters sent to a records storage center exclusively for storage, sent exclusively for destruction, retrieved from a records storage center, and sent as part of a household or business relocation.
9. Tags, labels, stickers, signs, or posters whose type-size, layout, or physical characteristics indicate that they are primarily intended to be attached to other objects for reading.
10. Photographic material sent by a person to a processor, and processed photographic material being returned from the processor to the person who sent the material for processing.
11. Copy sent from a person to an independent or company-owned printer or compositor, or between printers and compositors, and proofs or printed matter returned from the printer or compositor to the office of the person who initially sent the copy.
12. Sound recordings, films, and packets of identical printed letters containing messages that are to be totally or almost totally disseminated to the public.
13. Computer programs recorded on media suitable for direct input. For the conditions under which the PES are suspended for data processing materials, see subchapter 4-1.