Nice Cover With Cool Postmark On Reverse.......received In Bad Order.

Here is a cover I thought was interesting. It is in bad shape and has a postmark stamped on the back that reads "Received In Bad Order"
Thanks,
Robert

Great. Haven't seen that before.

Nice markings! The homemade repairs are, as always, very unfortunate. The tape may not have done great damage at this point. If it were mine, I'd remove the ### stuff.

Maybe the post office made an attempt at fixing this? Since it was all torn up.

Who knows.

The scotch tape was added well into the 20th century when it was invented.
It was not applied by the P.O.
An attempt should be made to remove it.

Nice cover. Sad to see it is in rough shape.

At this point I would imagine that the glue from the modern scotch tape has been fully transferred and partly absorbed into the paper under it so if one could remove it there would likely be that glue and discoloring in the paper itself. Unless the tape is easily lifted with little or no effort I might hesitate to try to remove it as it would not help much and the torn paper under it might be further damaged if the glue is stubborn.

You could stop the damage the tape is doing to the paper by removing it using fingernail polish remover, carefully. Replace the tape with a document repair tape ( I use Lineco), and usually bathe the cover at this point, fill cover with blotter material (water color paper works) and press to remove wrinkles.

As kimo said, the adhesive residue has in all likelihood transferred to the envelope at this point. If you are handy and careful, the largest part of the residue can probably be scraped away using a fresh scalpel blade, after you have successfully removed the plastic layer.