Slow US Mail

Here are two examples of mail delivery.

This postcard from the US was mailed in Albuquerque
on July 14, 2015 and arrived here in Canada
yesterday July 30, 2015.




This letter was posted from Austria this Monday
July 27, 2015 and was in my community mailbox before noon today
Friday, July 31,2015.



So the postcard from the USA took 15 days and the letter from
Austria was here in 4 days.
These examples are not the exception since I usually
get letters from Austria within 4 to 7 days whereas
mail from the US arrives anywhere from 10 days to
2 weeks.

Why is that?

Here is a clearer shot of the postmark
and the stamp issued for the 200th Anniversary
of the Vienna Congress after the defeat of Napoleon.

Our NSA has to scan everything in their database and it takes time. Such a file we have on you!

We're allowed to tell jokes here, aren't we?

(My UNDEAD stamp contest, I see, didn't go over so well...)

I wouldn't be surprised.

But one day it's gonna backfire on you.

Unless you blocked out some other stamps, the postcard from the U.S. is underfranked. I only see 35 cents (current domestic postcard rate stamp), but a postcard from the U.S. to Canada should have a rate of $1.20. Neither the USPS nor Canada Post caught the mistake.

It's funny, I've sent mail to ebay buyers in the UK on a Monday and gotten feedback from them (i.e. item received)on a Thursday. That's faster than it sometimes takes the mail to get just a few states away inside the US. 90% of the time mail gets where it's going within the US within 3-4 days or less, but as to that other 10% of the time, I've had it take 2-3 weeks or more, for no real apparent reason. I think sometimes it sits forgotten about in some truck parked at the back of the lot, or something along those lines.

I've griped about Canada-US (and vice-versa) mail service for years. Windsor, Ontario is a 20 minute drive south from my home, but it takes 10 to 14 days to get a letter to an address across the border.

The sender went to a Post Office in Old Town Albuquerque
with the addressed post card and told the clerk it's going
to Canada.
The clerk affixed the postcard rate stamp and hand stamped
the card with the red cancel.

The same person sent this one from Austin.
She went to a small tourist place downtown on either Saturday
or Sunday (July 11 or 12) where she
got the card and stamp "for less than a dollar".
She then gave the addressed card to the salesperson there
who said he would mail it.
This one was flagged (see the handwritten "due") as it only had a forever stamp on it.
But no postage due fees where required.

liothograving, I believe that some postal employees still live in the past century, when postal rates to Canada were indeed the same as those here in the States. However, for several years now it takes an international forever stamp. This year they cost $1.20!

Peter

The drones need to be re-programmed.

It's also interesting to see that both postcards also have the older machine cancels. Neither place has switched over to the spray-on cancels.

As for getting the rates right, it always seems that every post office does its own thing these days.

I received three very unusual covers in the mail this week. All from Canada, from two different people. Two are standard 6 3/4 envelopes with the stamps actually canceled (I don't remember when I got the last cover from Canada with a canceled stamp on it), one of those has stamps on both sides of the cover, and both sides have been canceled. I can only assume the postal clerk allowed the sender to do their own canceling... The third one was a FDC from 1984, slit open then taped closed with my item enclosed. No one seemed to have a problem with routing a cover from 1984 as if it were current. :)

@Petert4522. And until 1979 letter rates from Canada to the US
were the same as Canadian domestic rates.
Those were the days.Life was simple, life was good.

See here on the Postal History Corner

http://postalhistorycorner.blogspot...-states.html