A FDC Arrives 66 Years Late

Here's an interesting (and recent) occurrence where the post office delivers a piece of mail in 2011 -- but it was mailed in 1945!

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...=Local_Links

If the USPS is still using sorting equipment that is over 66 years old they really do have problems!

cool article. thanks wt1

I am not sure it is a mystery at all. If you look at the cover, it has modern coding along the bottom and someone has written the zip code on it. Could it not be just a 1945 FDC, which someone thought would be cute to drop in the mail and see what happens?

I had wondered that, too. However, it seems to me it wouldn't be getting the publicity in at least 10 news sources in the Greater Boston area if it were that simple. Surely the USPS would have figured that out long before the media got involved, as it is such an embarrassment to post office, they wouldn't be looking for media attention to such a thing.

The fact that it has a modern bar code at the bottom is indicative of the piece being found and re-entering the mailstream just recently.

In reading another portion of the article, I also took interest in the fact that the writer seemed to think that Mr. Staehle was a friend or relative of the recipient. As most stamp collectors know, that was the name of the cachetmaker of the time and it was essentially no different from a person today buying a cachet from a common mail order house and having it addressed to the recipient after the first day cancel was applied. Therefore, I don't think there was any connection to the cachetmaker and the intended recipient.

Stamp and cover collectors all know that the insert cards included in many of the older cacheted FDC's were solely an advertising medium since FDC's are typically a philatelic item and rarely, if ever, are intended to include personal letters.

An interesting update to this news item:

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/loca...-lost-letter

Personally, I think people are making way too much of what amounts to an inexpensive first day cover. Nevertheless, it does make for an interesting read and to see how many people "come out of the woodwork" when the media gets its hands on such a story.