Interesting And Unbelievable Cancels

I work for a clearing house here in Fort Lauderdale, FL. which receives tons of mail. I'm allowed to go through the mail before it is sent off to the shredder. So this past friday night after work as I looked through the mail for stamps I came across these two cancels and they are for real. I looked at the whole envelope and one had no stamp and the other yes a one cent stamp. And we wonder why the USPS is running a deficit.

O tempora, o mores. 3 pmk on a single stamp, just randomly opened an album of Reich Stamps. Anyway, some say Germans are very accurate people.

raywrio - in the context of millions of pieces of mail processed daily such errors are unavoidable and meaningless in terms of cost, or in terms of the additional equipment and supervision needed to reduce the error factor even lower.

Moonbird,

Yes I agree with your response. But I have seen dozens of these errors and also lack of proper postage. I guess sending the letter back for improper postage is even more expensive then sending it.

This occurs all the time around my area of the US. This example goes all the way back to 1995 when a "postcard rate" stamp was used for first class mail in a window envelope ... and it happened to contain a $500 rebate check for a car purchase. At least it got through the mails. For car enthusiasts, the return address becomes a bit interesting because of the demise of the Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Eagle nameplates ... today only Jeep survives:

Update: During my last pickings I found this one that did not get past the postman,



But this one didn't. For those not familiar with US stamps this is part of the forever booklet, not a stamp. Some others have posted their pictures of these.