Non-Machinable Mailing

If you mail something and stamp it "non-machinable", does that require more postage?


-IBFS

Yes!

21 cents more! This only applies to items mailed at the letter rate of 3.5oz or less.

Yes. 21 cents extra surcharge is added.

This is the USPS criteria for nonmachinable mail pieces:

Wow. And all very interesting wt!


-IBFS

One 'exception' is when you are moved from a letter rate to a parcel rate.

For example, mailing internationally, I (and others) have been told that our letter-dimension photo mailers would only travel at the parcel rate ($9) and not the letter rate ($2-3). The happy side is that the 21c surcharge no longer applied.

I explained to the clerk that the 21c surcharge was assessed precisely *because* my otherwise-letter-dimension item was rigid.

Hand To G-d, she said: "Yeah, but that's for rigid; this is actually *stiff*!"

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

PS, IBFS: A careful reading of your predicate makes me wonder if you are stamping something "non-machinable" that would, in fact, be machinable ... a sleazy, under-handed, dishonest tactic that I thought of using, myself.

We should consider ikeyPikey's Dictum: "count on indifference to make a difference."

You should *not* expect that your non-machinable items will be in a separate mail stream, even if you hand them to a clerk. At some point, all of the mail might well be dumped into a common hopper, with the machine, itself, rejecting items that are well & truly non-machinable.

In that case, your machinable item, regardless of markings, would fly right thru the facer-canceller, and get shpritzed with that ugly black cloud that passes for a postmark nowadays.

Further, depending on which facer-canceller (etc) is in use at the end of that conveyer at that facility on that day for that mail stream, YMMV.

If you want the item to be treated as "non-machinable", you might take care to make sure that it is well & truly non-machinable.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

ikeyPikey: I know you bought something from me recently. It definitely should have a hand cancel, but did it also have a spray machine cancel as well?

I mail all my letter rate items as nonmachinable, but I believe some are still going through the machines in Albany, NY despite having been canceled already. It seems while the local post office will handle it properly, the other offices often don't. I also mailed some items from the Bennington, VT post office where I saw a postal clerk with a "Nonmachinable" handstamp for the first time ever. I need to get one of those made up.

Yo, Battlestamps: That one came thru beautifully; just that large, clean, double-circle postmark. The routing barcode was printed on a label, and attached alng the bottom of the face of the envelope. No ugly shpritz. Of course, these days, an awful lot of stamped letter-sized mail comes thru sans postmark, BTAT (But That's Another Thread). Cheers,

ikeyPikey: Glad to hear it. I must have mailed yours through either Pownal or Bennington, Vermont. Hoosick had a 4-bar postmark, but alas tis no more.