Patent ID: 7496538

Claim:
A system for franking postal matter with a franking apparatus and for inspecting the franking comprising: a franking apparatus that franks postal matter, having a printing unit a machine-readable date stamp onto items of postal matter, a central unit containing a fee module, storing and debiting postage fees to be included in said date stamp, and having a print control module that controls said printing unit; a postage fee apparatus engageable in a communication protocol with said franking apparatus that makes postage fee units electronically available to said franking apparatus as electronic coins each having unique coin identification information embodied therein, said electronic coins being entered in said communication protocol into said fee module of said central unit and said unique coin identification information being incorporated in said date stamp on one of said items together with the electronic coin associated with the unique coin identification information by said printing unit, to individualize the date stamp compared to other date stamps; and an inspection unit remote from said franking apparatus that inspects said items, including a memory that stores respective date stamps on successively inspected items of postal matter, by comparing the unique coin identification information in the date stamp on a currently inspected item of postal matter with said stored date stamps to determine whether the date stamp on the currently inspected item of postal matter has been previously used to determine, from said unique coin identification information, whether said date stamp has been multiply used.