"Missent To ..." Auxiliary Marking Overprinted With "Hymera, Ind." Marking

Dad had three of these Nickel Plate Road celebration covers. One came to him from McComb, Ohio, without any issues. The two shown here were apparently sent to Hymera, Indiana, where they received the two auxiliary markings.

Am I correct in thinking the "Missent to ………………………" was a standard marking stamp made available by the POD and designed to be used by various post offices where the post office name could be written or, in this case, stamped into the space by postal clerks?

Morning Tom and all,

The "Miscent to ………" is a common straight line device supplied by the USPO to almose all post offices as part of their standard set of auxiliary devices. The "HYMERA, IND." device is also a standard item available to all post offices for the name of their office. It sees its most use on "postal paper" or forms but is not uncommon on cover. Nice appropriate combination usage.

Best regards, Russ

Yes, the "Missent to....." was a standard stock device which could be ordered by the postmaster if desired. See item 86:



The dotted blank line was filled-in with a variety of marking devices or hand-writing. The inefficiency of using device 86 required strikes of two separate devices.

More efficient is a single device to indicate "missent", shown here from Lynn where your covers eventually ended up.



Add: Here is what they looked like, Smaller one is 2.5" tall and 1-7/8 wide. Larger one is 2.75" tall and 2" wide. Probably made by different contractors.

Thank you Russ and John for confirming my thinking. It took me a while to get there as I tried to decipher what was inked below the "HYMERA, IND." Then I finally realized it was ".............!"

Thanks, too, for all that added info, John. There's much I've never known about PO operations.

As far as being MISSENT TO LYNN is concerned, I suspect one or two of my LYNN HS classmates thought I had been missent!

Tom

Morning Tom and John and all,

Tom, have any other interesting items from your family papers to discuss?

John, the 1953 supply list is new to me. What other supply lists might you have in your library?

Best regards, Russ