Unfrei is a term used in the German postal system.  If something is sent unfrei it means that the recipient pays for the postage.

This is often indicated on the envelope as “Gebühr bezahlt Empfänger”.  Some companies pre-print their envelopes with “Bitte freimachen, falls Briefmarke zur Hand” requesting that you put a stamp on the envelope, but that they will pay the postage anyway if you do not.

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Die Zuschlagmarke is a type of stamp that has two face values: one for the postage and another for a special cause, eg. 55+25

These sorts of stamps often appear before Christmas and include a small donation to a charity. In the above example 55 cents would be the postage for a letter and 25 cents would be the donation.

The donation is not allowed to be higher than half the value of the postage itself, although this has not always been the case and stamps used to be produced with values such as 12+38.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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