Caught The Monkey Marker Red Handed

So yesterday I went into the post office not the shoppers counter but a real office. Mission was to mail a reg letter being a nice guy I asked for a $10 whale and $5 moose stamp to cover the cost , decided the buyer of the stamps might as well get a nice cover, After placing the stamps nice and neat I asked her if she would hand cancel the stamps she said sure there she is with the letter in hand and turns around to her work bench behind her and has a marker in her hand. With out thinking I said what the @#$$%% are you doing she said " You asked for me to cancel the stamps" Not with a marker but a date stamp I told her one of the biggest complaints collectors have is the marker squiggles all over the stamps. What we like is a nice clean cancel. She was a little surprised and said that most of the time they just use a marker once the stamp is marked it cant be used again, they are told if they dont have quick acces to the hand stamp just use a marker, After our little talk she said she will try and cancel in future.

Hi, I talked with the Postmaster in our city about that, what he told me was. The marker makes a nice big "can't use again" type mark on the stamps. The hand type stamp costs more than markers and sometimes the clerks miss one or 2 trying to position the hand stamp over the stamps,especially if there is more than 3 or 4. He showed me the hand stamps they currently have there and they look terrible. High and low places on the pad and the ink tin pad is also smashed down. They are trying to close down this facility and make a neighboring post office the place for all the surrounding citys. So the budget is tight.. They are in the process of shutting down a hub here also. I told him about how stamp collectors hate this and he said " I was the first collector to come to the office and say what I said." He informed me that they will continue to use the markers also for cancels. Terrible world we live in. lol Keith

Its called efficiency, I wonder if a red sharpie will be worth more than the black sharpie down the road, Maybe Canada Post will bring out a limited colour marker that collectors will want, It just ticked me off when I saw her ready to mark the stamps a nice $10 whale, Normally I go to the postal outlet at shoppers they know me very well there. I often go in with 20 plus envelopes to mail all plastered with old 5 cent stamps and ask for them to be hand cancelled. I would have gone there but they don't have the high value stamps. if she is busy will often ask me to help cancel the envelopes gotta love the small town Canada.
Its a joke when the post office cant afford new cancels who ever thought a marker would be better was no collector

I think the pride is gone also, she just wanted to get that mail out of her way. Pride taken over by efficiency like you said. I asked our delivery guy awhile back if he collected stamps or knew of anyone at that office who collects stamps and he said no. I also receive older stamps on envelopes from my purchases from e-bay and when he looked at them he didn't really believe they were stamps. Its time we abolish markers..lol Keith

My local Post Office (Atlanta) will not use the round stamp or any other cancelling method to cancel any mail. Their excuse is that cancellations is now the responsibility of the sorting center and that the sorting center do this to give an accurate counting of the quantity of mai by local Zip codes. Too bad, because I really like the look of a round stamp on my mail.

I go to my post office and ask them for the hand canceller and they pass it to me, so I can do the job myself.

Steve

I suppose now the proper English would be 'Could you Postmark the stamps for me please?' said with a smile. Or to Time Stamp or Date Stamp the stamps.

Partly I think all this comes from the dying need to prove that a post office has handled the mail and at what time they have handled it that was the requirement years ago, in order to maintain efficiency and speed in handling.

Now, at most sorting centres, a fluorescent / phosphorescent bar code is printed on the envelope somewhere and the machine readers and computers handle the efficiency part and reporting.

Lost pride is there too I think.

The number of collectors coming in to some Post Offices is in a slump today also, so a lot of our part-time workers at Shoppers and other stores have not encountered stamp collectors in all their madness and charm. Most need to be gently learned up on proper handling and care of stamp collectors.

I even think that the POCON rectangular cancel devices the post offices use now were for the stamping of money orders, replacing the older smaller square MOON (Money Order Office Number) cancels, and that Post Offices do not have proper circular cancelling devices because they cost more to use. The Shoppers Drug Marts, etc, are running the post offices and paying the employees themselves and are probably not aware of cancelling devices, only of the bottom line.

So, what I am saying, is that since some Post Offices in Quebec and Manitoba (I think) still have their older (seemingly) type CDS cancellers in use, why doesn't every other post office in Canada also have them? Huh?

I even offered at one point, once I was shown a beautiful circular POCON cancel from Winnipeg, I think it was, to buy one of a proper allowed sort for one post office here in Halifax, telling them it would, once word got around, help them in their stamp sales and customer base. The nice clerk asked the rep and he had never heard of the idea, sadly, and that was the end of that.


I think I will follow this up myself. If you want the job done right . . . get a stamp collector to do it!

The present head of Canada Post (Deepak Chopra, didn't he write some books?) is selling the Picture Postage stamps I believe (or at least is aware of them) so perhaps he may be open to further ideas of pleasing the Worldwide (mind you) collector community in more ways then printing more stamps up.

Presentation is also in the cancellation! Look at German / Austrian / Swiss / French / Spanish, etc stamps. Look how lovely this Australian stamp looks with a properly (well, lightly done anyway) done cancel: (just taken off kg5collector's ebay sales by the way)