Mixed Frankings: Postage Due & More

The item was probably a postcard mailed by a U.S. tourist in Cuba that had carried the U.S. stamp to Cuba and used it to mail the postcard. The 1c Cuban stamp was required as a tax to support the Ministry of Communications (Cuban Postal System). The postcard must have been dropped at a mailbox in Havana or at the sender's hotel and the postal service just didn't look too closely at the stamps on the postcard when cancelling them or just decided to let it go through as a courtesy to the sender.

Without the 1c Cuban tax stamp, the post office would probably not have sent it forward, so the supposition that a Cuban suggested the addition of the 1c tax stamp or just added it to the card (for example at the hotel) as a courtesy to the tourist is probably correct. The partial words on the cancellation are correctly surmised to be "Servicio Aereo" ("Airmail Service"). Too bad somebody cut the stamps from the postcard--it would have been a nice piece of postal history if kept intact. As is, keep them on the piece--the stamps by themselves are not worth much.