Marker Monkey Strikes Again

It's a good thing I don't collect modern Australia, cause otherwise I'd be a little more upset about destroying perfectly good used postage. All were cleanly cancelled with a CDS, then hit again with the marker.

That's just awful!

absolutely disgraceful - no sense to it what so ever

Perhaps it's the postal authorities "revenge" against a collector who uses so many stamps on a parcel. Somewhere in the mailstream postal officials have to count up that postage to figure out if the correct amount was applied.

I wonder what it all added up to? (I can't tell from the scan.)

They don't have to count it if it's already been canceled.

And even if they did, I bet they wouldn't take the time. I doubt anyone thinks about the amount except the person at the counter.

Postmaster -- even if you don't collect, it's still a shame. You could have put it them in your pile of kiloware to sell/give away.

These make me sad.
Kirk

I agree that these markings are very sad and totally unnecessary. I know many folks here have complained about such markings before - and in this case, I agree.

I do, however, have an accumulation of many envelopes with such markings that I have gathered over the years. One of these days I will put them all together and make a little exhibit of it.

They are, sometimes, kind of interesting ... a bit of stamp graffiti, I would say (as compared to stamp art).

Also, interestingly, many people in the public are very surprised to see such markings. They don't know that it is postal authorities' duties to mark (cancel) all postage that makes its way through the mail.

I know the feeling postmaster.

I too have been a victim of this 'senseless crime to stamps'.
There is no excuse for it whatsoever. All the postal entities have the necessary cancellors to cancel stamps, so, they should be using them!

Chimo

Bujutsu

I understand the rules, Centerstage...

...but I think some of the replies missed the part of the original post stating "all were cleanly cancelled with a C[ircular] D[ate] S[tamp]".

Given that, there was no reason to further deface the stamps.

KirkS

I just tried to add it up and the postage for all 75 stamps seems to come to $43.57.

A bored postal employee with a marker - senseless destruction!

Marker Monkey is very talented -- he likes to us a pen too. It's a good thing the USPS doesn't allow employees to carry crayons.

There were a few stamps on the other side as well, and they too received the marker. Total postage was about $48 Australian.

I've had a few of those in NZ

A few tellers at my local post office recently started to Sellotape over the stamps on parcels 'in case they fall off'. Right!

I tried to inform them politely that people collect these and to Sellotape all over them renders them useless.

At the end of the day these girls and boys are just 'retail till bunnies' with no interest in the product they sell and they dont seem to realise some people still collect stamps

Very Sad! Very Sad!

About 18 of the stamps are very common but

the others generally are strongly looked for by collectors.

I wonder if the PO worker had to count up the value of the stamps to make sure that the parcel carried the correct mailing cost and then took revenge?

Maybe they want less stamps to count next time?

On taking a second look, yes, I can now see the fine cancellations on the stamps. However, the marker mentioned in this thread draws most of us away from the cancellations and stands out predominantly.

This makes the situation even more senseless because they were already cancelled.

Chimo

Bujutsu