Marker Monkeys And Other Stamp Crimes.

In 1899 Belgium Xs were apparently popular

too bad with the xs you got a great socked on the nose.

Does anybody know what the text under the x's mean? Was thinking that the could x's be a result of someone, like the sender, were disagreeing with the text?

two different languages yobo French and German?? I can't see all the words but I think it reads "no Sunday delivery".

I have a few of these type of stamps and they are usually perfed between the extra note on the bottom so that probably could be removed for some reason. This being imperf prevents that except by cutting and if the sender did not have some scissors handy X's would have to do I would think. I am not sure of the history exactly. It was discussed on Stamp Community before though, I vaguely remember.

It was cut from a postcard. Would need a specialized catalog to get any info.

A stationery cutout,
and for me a lovely example of a cancellation
of the no Sunday delivery, the "X's" are pertinent.

On a stamp, the tab would be removed, not so naturally on a postcard.
a collectible piece. welcomed in my collection.

The meaning of these tabs was discussed here before.


https://goscf.com/t/12120

Oh man I HATE that!! What posseses clerks to DO this?? I sent some envelopes out recently and had the clerk hand cancel them. They seemed happy to do it. So who wields the marker??

Hello again folks – I spoke to a man this morning who works for the Post Office. He is a technician, and works on the various sorting machines. He had some interesting facts to share, then it hit me: ASK ABOUT THE MARKERS!

He explained that sometimes a piece of mail ends up in the wrong place, like the wrong sorter. He was telling me about a letter he found laying in a place where it could very well stay for some time. He took it to the supervisor's desk, where it was still sitting the next day. He said that he took it apon himself to cancel it, and put it in the right spot to get it into the mailstream. He said the desk has an actual cancel stamp.

He had never heard of anyone using a magic marker.

He did also remind me that stamps are not printed for collectors. They are postage. But he did seem to agree marker use was a bit malicious.

Soooo, there is one opinion/fact-infusion from a Postal Employee to share with everyone!

Its just occurred to me, reading this thread again, I don't remember seeing pen cancels prior to takingup collecting again - and I think I would remember, as I always kept any stamps I received, if not for myself then for the charity collections. So I was kinda paying attention.
Now, I regularily receive mail with "unusual" postage on it - i.e. from fellow SCF members or from ebay stamp sellers, using older stamps and unusual combinations for postage. Is it the case that the automatic sorters "spit" these out as they are not phosphor tagged? Or are they in some other way taken out of the regular mail stream in order to receive such careful, personal attention Perhaps some unwilling clerk has to work out if they have the correct postage by counting up the twenty low-denomination machins... or whatever... and by the end of this they are enraged with the futility of their lives and wield the marker accordingly.
All I know is I don't remember ever seeing it on my "regular" mail.

Found these in my album while doing a little catalog-checking...

Now that was not nice

A convenient one liner, but that would need further debating,
collector representatives are present on most design
boards, and postal services publish magazines
esp for collectors who contribute vastly to sales.
Yes, not sure I would agree with that fellow.

Found these today...Why zap the top ones when they were already cancelled???