Crayon Scribble On Todays Mail??

I'm trying to collect stamps relying on what I receive in the mail so as you can expect I have around 7 or 8 stamps so far. Today I was really excited to get four Charlie Brown stamps (computer printed versions?) But someone had scribbled on the upper right corner of the envelope with a black crayon - right over the stamps! This is exactly how I found them in my mailbox. Do you think someone let their kids play with undelivered mail? Or does someone at the post office just hate Charlie Brown?

I'm guessing someone in USPS felt the cancel you see on the upper left stamp was not sufficient and defaced them so they couldn't be reused again. Unfortunately it ruins the stamps for collecting but that procedure has been the bane of collectors for countless years.

Take your daughter to work day. (Wink.)

Rule 1: "Protect the revenue"

I believe postal regulations require office staff or letter carriers to cancel stamps that have escaped machine canceling, if they spot them. The use of crayon, or a China pencil which this might be, is a matter of convenience. Hand canceling stamps are costly to make and replace, and must be inked. Therefore we see ball point pens, markers, and crayons used because they are cheap and ubiquitous. Crayon has the advantage of being less sensitive to weather; there is no ink that needs to flow. The only real way to avoid this practice is to request hand canceling at the counter when you mail a piece, and even that's no guarantee. But it's important to remember that the postal employees are just following rules with the tools that management gives them.

In a way I think it adds to it given it is Charlie Brown. Somehow it seems appropriate.

Actually, in this case, I believe that the "revenue protection" crayon scribbles is overkill since these "labels" are not considered postage stamps by the USPS but are in a category all by themselves. You'll notice that the ink spray-on cancellation has no lines that are often used to cancel stamps, just the postal section center and the date and time. This is because the "labels" don't need to be canceled, the minute they are put on the envelope they are considered used by the USPS.

A few years ago I had some stamps like this that I used for some pictorial cancellations. The envelopes were returned to me with the notation that these "labels" couldn't (didn't have to be) canceled with a handstamp. The post office even quoted me the chapter and verse in the postal manual but I can't find it now.

Glenn Estus

editor, The Vermont Philatelist http://www.vermontps.org

First Day Columnist, Stamp Insider http://www.stampinsider.org

http://empirestatepostalhistory.blogspot.com/

http://nypostalhistory.blogspot.com/

http://vermontpostalhistory.blogspot.com

tom, are you saying that Lucy did it?

The USPS supplies carriers & clerks with an Eberhard Faber black marker pencil

Carriers are informed that they are make sure that all stamps are canceled before delivery

You may want to try, dipping a cotton swab in a bit of ladies nail polish remover.It just may remove that scribble.

Glenn,

Are you saying the cancelling device sees that dot matrix pattern and decides just to spray a date only?

Also I just noticed the numbers next to the dot matrix pattern are all the same (can't tell if the dot matrix patterns are the same due to the scribbling) I had thought these were unique. Are they supposed to be the same like this?

Dsmith:

Not sure how it works, but I have noticed the same type of cancellation on some metered mail.

hobggg,

Thanks for the idea, but I'm too worried I will damage the stamps/labels. They are currently the highlight of my collection. How does the black crayon effect the condition of them? Are they considered like a regular cancellation since applied by a postal service employee or would it be considered as damage?

Thank you

These are postally used, they are just not desirable. To many people they are considered "not collectible" condition.

Personally, I don't like the crayon cancels, but I don't think of them the same way I think about ball point pen cancels. Ball point pen markings are quite ugly, and they dig into, and sometimes damage the paper and image ink.

If you get the chance, read the comments on the various "marker monkey" topics here at Stamp Community Forum.

The bar code on the left of each stamp is unique. I believe these stamps are electronically cancelled by reading of the bar code so no ink cancel is required. The USPS needs to educate its carriers.

I've received a few of the Charlie Brown stamps as well as earlier designs. I don't recall if any of them received the date portion of a sprayed on cancel but most come through with no cancel at all as expected.

Nah she would never do that or would she?