Is It Illegal To Re-Use Uncancelled Stamps?

I see an old post here from 2010 that discussed this to some degree, but I recently found a story from 2011 that gave me pause.

The following press release from the RCMP in March 2011 regarding the Montreal counterfeit ring bust seems to imply that it is illegal to re-use uncancelled stamps or to sell them without Canada Post's permission.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/qc/nouv-n...0329-eng.htm

" Canada Post is pleased with the results of the investigation that will put an end to the illegal activities of selling counterfeit or reused stamps in the Montreal and Toronto areas."

Does anyone know how this case played out; did the counterfeiters actually get convicted of selling reused stamps?

I've searched the Canada Post Corporation Act but can not find any regulation prohibiting the re-use of stamps. Can anyone confirm whether this is law?

It would be neat to add one of the counterfeits to your collection. I wonder how you could get one though? That's a tricky topic eh?

Counterfeits are already included in many fine collections and sold & exchanged between collectors. They are called forgeries, and some of them are worth a great deal as novelties.

Taking one of those forgeries and using it as postage would constitute fraud. I don't think anyone here would dispute that. The question is whether re-using stamps is actually illegal as claimed by the RCMP and Canada Post in this press release.

JR1960,

I found this:



Here is the link:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/...0stamp#s-55.

And section 52 states it's illegal to remove a cancellation from a postage stamp.

Robert

I'm no lawyer, but I believe I have heard that it is legal to sell uncancelled stamps and collect them. It is not legal to re-use a stamp that has already served postal duty (even if it goes through uncancelled).

I am (I mean a friend of someone I know) is guilty of occasionally re-using envelopes that have come through uncancelled, so perhaps it is more a matter of conscience. Perhaps it is like "recycling" paper.

I am like you 3dadeo "I heard" a person had books of stamps that were stuck together and to preserve them soaked them, dried them, pressed them in a book and used glue stick to use them as postage and there was never a complaint heard. although not technically used as postage a similar situation as resurrected postage ,unusable rendered usable.

Whether they are cancelled or not is not the issue actually, but whether they have been used or not. Check the fluorescent bar code cancel on the bottom of the front and sometimes the back of the envelope for another type of envelope cancel that may apply.

If that is upside down on the envelope and on the stamp(s) then they are cancelled or used.

- - - - - - - - - -

On the back of a current issue (2014) of Royal Ontario Museum booklet stamps:




It is not Canada Post's permission that is at question here but the actual Canadian law that is being broken.

Also, if 'some' lazy post office employees would actually cancel the stamps, like they are supposed to, this decision wouldn't have to be made.

My opinions of course.

Chimo

Bujutsu

My wife's grandfather once told her dad that if mail was delivered, the stamp did the job it was supposed to do and would not allow her dad to reuse the uncanceled stamp. I follow the same advice. It also seems to me that automated canceling of stamps in larger post offices are probably the "guilty" party of not canceling a stamp that slips through the machinery without a cancel.

There is also the times when the machines run out of ink at the cancelling areas or parts and when employees are on vacation that leave the sorting (sortation) plants low man-power to handle all of the mail volume traveling through the system.

If I soaked it off an envelope, It's used. If I soaked from other blocks of stamps I can still use it. Pretty simple.

postal employees have scheduled leave and it is spread out through the year except xmas when no one goes on leave as those blocks for leave are not offered and more part time help is hired during that time. if an area is undermanned overtime is authorized so really no area or machines are undermanned and the mail by law 1st class mail that is has 24 hours from time arrived to time departs to leave the processing plant and the local post office is not your processing plant to cancel letters or anything they might do some but it is the job of the processing plant center.

those machines do not run out of ink they have on call in house mechanics that come a running at the push of a button. running machines that are not working isn't going to happen.

How about the following : you receive a letter with proper postage applied to it and cancelled. Can you respond "free of charge" by just scratching your address and return to sender

you cannot write return to sender and it be automatically returned,the mail carrier is supposed to stamp it if undeliverable not if it is unaccepted, there are stamps for that sort of thing, if it is marked by non postal employee it is delivered again as the company paid them to deliver it and they will not return to sender unless it says in the return address ""RETURN IF UNDELIVERABLE"" in that case the company pays or paid to have it returned. if the items returns to the post office with out your address it is sent to nixie and they round file it if it doesn't say by the company "RETURN IF UNDELIVERABLE" the postal service gets a lot of that type mail due to people not wanting a billing or junk mail or credit card advertising, a lot of magazines and no doubt many many other things- I am sure there are exceptions but what I say here is true.

LarryBruce, Thanks for the clear explanation

LarryBruce, what if the person has moved (no forwarding address)?

I get a lot of that at my new address and try to send it back to sender with ("No longer at this address") written on the envelope.

Will it get back in that case, even if the sender has not specified to return undeliverable mail?

Otherwise they would just keep sending it to me, no?