Royal Mail ruins stamps

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one
having my stamps ruined by unnecessary
Royal Mail cancels done by ballpoint pen
or black marker. (see story below)

Over the last 18 months, I have probably
lost one hundred pounds worth of British
commemoratives that were posted with light
cancels by the senders.

Somewhere along the route, additional,
unnecessary, cancels in ballpoint pen and
heavy black marker, were added making the
stamps worthless.

Blair

============================================

Royal Mail ruins stamps

A STAMP collecting couple are annoyed that
new additions to their collection are being
ruined by Royal Mail.

John and Gillian Endacott, both 57, of
Whitehall Gardens, Chingford, are keen
philatelists but the stamps they get
through the post, including a recent one
of the royal wedding, are being defaced
by ink squiggles.

Mrs Endacott said: "We send a lot of stamped
addressed envelopes to be returned to us
franked so they can either be put in our
collection or we make up stamp packs for
the local Red Cross shop to sell for charity."

The Endacotts' collection runs into thousands
of stamps but Mrs Endacott said they had given
up collecting for the time being.

She added: "They're no good to anybody, all
they're good for is the bin."

They have written to the Royal Mail but have
not got a response.

A Royal Mail spokesman said that he could not
say whether the squiggles meant anything unless
he saw them himself.

He added: "The best advice I could give to the
customer is to take the letters into their local
delivery office and they can explain."

This was little comfort to Mrs Endacott, who
said that she had been to the office several
times before to enquire about missing post.

She added: "They're not very keen to help down
there, not very co-operative."


Sunday 22nd May 2005

This doesn't only apply to the UK - I had all sorts of problems with the NZ
post office. Not just the purple pen through the unfranked German (usually)
stamps but they'd go over the franked ones, too which is a pity as German
post offices tend to frank stamps very cleanly. I have a large number of
German stamps in my collection with a clear "New Lynn" cancellation which I
guess is valid as New Lynn was the receiving office. Other nice habits
included sticking self adhesive labels over the stamps with goodness knows
what in mind and scrawling "569" (my box number) all over the envelope &
stamps even though the package was clearly addressed to box 569.

I now live in the US where everything seems to arrive in good shape though I
have yet to train one of the guys at my local post office that, if I'm
mailing a package that needs $25 of postage on it, I want stamps and that
doesn't mean I want to spend half an hour sticking on 25 $1 self-adhesives.
The other guy there is great, though.

--
Cheers - John Mycroft
coryton_at_cobbsmill_dot_com

Maybe you should scrawl "Use stamps for postage"
across the first guy's forehead in permanent
black marker. Better still, write it backwards
so that he can read it in the mirror every morning. 8*)

Blair (TC)

In article ,
John Mycroft wrote:
This doesn't only apply to the UK - I had all sorts of problems with the NZ
post office. Not just the purple pen through the unfranked German (usually)
stamps but they'd go over the franked ones, too which is a pity as German
post offices tend to frank stamps very cleanly. I have a large number of
German stamps in my collection with a clear "New Lynn" cancellation which I
guess is valid as New Lynn was the receiving office. Other nice habits
included sticking self adhesive labels over the stamps with goodness knows
what in mind and scrawling "569" (my box number) all over the envelope &
stamps even though the package was clearly addressed to box 569.

I now live in the US where everything seems to arrive in good shape though I
have yet to train one of the guys at my local post office that, if I'm
mailing a package that needs $25 of postage on it, I want stamps and that
doesn't mean I want to spend half an hour sticking on 25 $1 self-adhesives.
The other guy there is great, though.

In my experience, the USPS will often use pens, felt markers, etc to
make darn sure that you won't be able to reuse that postage.

I did get a few covers from Germany last week with no cancels at all.
Good stamps, too. I suppose that I can save them as uncancelled/used.


--
= Eric Bustad, Norwegian bachelor programmer