Some More Lovely Cancels...

...from the British Royal Mail.




Ironically, there really are some nice CDS cancels on the stamps - maybe they were too faint, leading to the big red marker pen techinque!




*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

If I'd had to add that lot up, I'd probably have taken it out on the stamps too!

This one would send me to the local parcels office to complain, if that is who delivered this. Otherwise, it's on your local office. Marker Monkeys are typically whoever is the last in line to handle the mail.

Lightly cancelled or not, the stamps were properly cancelled. Re-cancelling this is a sheer waste of time but then again there are some real experts at wasting time in the post office.

Somebody needs glasses perhaps. That doesn't bode well if that person is faking reading addresses on mail or is driving a delivery vehicle. All in all, someone who is potentially bad news.

Number 1 across in the puzzle I think should be F-I-R-E-D.

Which is why, as philatelists in an age where 90%+ of all postal transactions result in printed labels, it's incumbent upon us to help the clerks, or ultimately "help them help us."

What I don't see in the picture above (granted that may not be the entire cover), is any penned notation anywhere as to what the total amount affixed is. Any time I send out any letter or parcel with more than $1 of postage affixed, I mark in the upper left corner the total of postage affixed.

At least at my post office, this has saved the clerks time, since they know I bothered to calculate what the total amount due was and confirm that I got the rate correct. It's to the point now that they just check for that number and don't even bother confirming it. They just hand cancel it and go.

You want nicely canceled letters and parcels? Don't pizz off the people that have to process them.

That took a lot of effort. I guess they wanted to make sure that you knew that they were used and cancelled.

Perhaps you should try to think of it as an unusual manuscript cancel?