The Route Instruction Labels

In order to facilitate the addressing of Overland Mail covers, Route Instruction labels had been prepared. Some of the labels were issued by Postal Administrations of Iraq, Egypt and Cyprus, others are still of unknown source, eventually prepared by private individuals.

Some of the labels are difficult to classify due to poor illustrations in the literature which is noted in the table below.

Image	Handbook Number	Handbook Size	Measured size	Comment
	L-1	61 x 10 mm perforated	63,60 x 14,30 mm	Size measured excluding the perforation. It appears the size mentioned in the literature is the size of the white frame on the label but not the label itself.
	L-1	61 x 10 mm perforated	64,10 x 12,40 mm	Left side of the labels imperforated, I assume the labels have been printed in sheet form (numbers of labels per sheet unknown) and perforated only between the labels.
	L-1	61 x 10 mm perforated	63,90 x 13,90 mm	Out of a block of 7 labels
	L-03 / 04a	L-03: 74 x 9 mm L-04: 73 x 9 mm	73,50 x 8,80 mm	I have seven covers with label type L-03/L04 in my collection and so far strongly believe that Label L-03 and L-04 are actually identical labels. Based on my research, I can not make out a clear difference in size which justifies a separate number.
	L-03 / 04b	L-03: 74 x 9 mm L-04: 73 x 9 mm	73,50 x 8,80 mm
	L-03 / 04c	L-03: 74 x 9 mm L-04: 73 x 9 mm	73,60 x 8,80 mm
	L-03 / 04d	L-03: 74 x 9 mm L-04: 73 x 9 mm	73,30 x 8,70 mm
	L-03 / 04e	L-03: 74 x 9 mm L-04: 73 x 9 mm	73,50 x 8,80 mm
	L-03 / 04f	L-03: 74 x 9 mm L-04: 73 x 9 mm	73,90 x 8,60 mm
	L-03 / 04g	L-03: 74 x 9 mm L-04: 73 x 9 mm	73,20 x 8,80 mm
	L-03 / 04	L-03: 74 x 9 mm L-04: 73 x 9 mm	73,50 x 8,80 mm	Out of a mint block of 9 such labels I have extracted the shown image.
	L-05a	72 x 9 mm	72,20 x 94	I have 4 covers with label L-05 in my collection. Based on my research, I can make out a (small) difference compared to label L-04, although the difference is very small.
	L-05b	72 x 9 mm	72,30 x 9,30 mm
	L-05c	72 x 9 mm	72,30 x 9,40 mm
	L-05d	72 x 9 mm	71,70 x 9,60 mm
	L-06a	73 x 9 mm	73,00 x 8,90 mm
	L-06b	73 x 9 mm	72,90 x 8,80 mm
	L-07 / 08a	L-07: 74 x 9 mm L-08: 75 x 9 mm	72,90 x 8,90 mm	I have only 2 covers with label L-07 / L-o8 in my collection and so far, i can not make out a clear difference in them.
	L-07 / 08b	L-07: 74 x 9 mm L-08: 75 x 9 mm	73,60 x 9,00 mm
	L-13
	L-14a new subtype	Typewritten on greenish paper		Used from the Iranian Foreign Office. Previously it was known only with capital lettering, this is the first one known with mixed (capital and lower case) lettering.