Current Stamps, Do You Mail Yourself Letters To Get A Cancellation And Do They Get Cancelled?

I am asking because so far I have not seen any letters I have received with stamps cancelled. It is almost as if the post office does not care or realize people can remove stamps and reuse them.

I am wondering if I can take all my letters back to the post office and ask them to cancel them manually or just throw them back in the mail box?

Any experience with this? I am asking because the current stamps are already a disaster and more like stickers than stamps and if now the post office is not going to bother to cancel them then what can we do?

Is it worth getting outside of large cities and go into small towns to make sure they cancel them manually or is it a useless endeavor?

How do you solve this situation? When I buy stamps I mail myself letters to get both the cancelled and MNH version but 90% of the time there is never a cancellation on them.

Advices?

Given that France still has proper, dedicated post offices, which actually sell you new commemoratives if you buy a stamp (unlike the UK), you could ask at your local office whether they'd cancel one of your pair of new issues for you. It would be "cancelled by favour", rather than having gone through the system, but it may be the best you can do these days.

I collect mint and used Ireland and have always bought fwo sets of new issues so that I can send one set to myself.
It has always been a bit "hit and miss"...no cancellationor one that obliterates the stamp.
In the 1980s and 1990, I bought new issues in a "border" village and the postmaster cancelled the stamps and handed them back to me.
Nowadays I tend to buy at least three sets of new issues...one is held as mint. One set is posted at the Philatelic Counter in Dublin and I will specify "not first day" and I will get a nice neat cancellation.
The third set (say four stamps)will be posted in four random towns on different dates. The marking will be authentic.
Frankly (no pun intended) I am on the side of the post office. For decades I have been reading letters in stamp magazines "post office ruined my covers". Post Offices do not exist for the convenience of eccentric collectors.
Having said that, I can be as eccentric as tge next man/woman and I did write to complain to the British post office that stamps had not been canceled.
I got a nice reply saying bring them to the local sorting centre and it will get a pen marking...all of which seems a bit pointless and if it happens now, I just take a biro and mark the stamp.

I also collect north of ireland regional stamps. Most post offices dont bother to stock them. Recently I bought some issues on ebay. I accidently discovered that my local village office handstamps stamps that are on small parcels so I put the stMps on a small parcel (strictly speaking the envelope was empty but addressed) and the clerk stamped them and handed them back to me. She thought I was a bit eccentric but relatively harmless.
I hate to quibble but she really went to town with her handstamp and almost impossible to make out the denomination.
But really thats the whole point "a used stamp is a used stamp is a used stamp" edpecially if it is alongside

Monsoon: welcome to the Forum.

I usually don't send letters or post cards to myself, for cancellations, unless I'm out of the country. I have sent letters to others from smaller post offices here in Colorado, USA, and they generally are happy to provide the cancellations. Most US internal mail, however, goes through regional processing centers where they may or may not be cancelled.

I live about 80 miles (about 130 km) from the highest full time post office, in elevation, in the entire United States: Alma, Colorado. It's 10,300 feet above sea level (about 3,140 m). I've thought of sending myself some letters from there, with special stamps, but haven't done so yet.

I've tried this on occasion in Cyprus especially in the villages. They all have a 'post office' usually the local coffee shop or grocers,in some its the village council office. Usually they oblige but trying to get a clear postmark usually means having to clean the canceller as they are hardly used any more. The majority of postal agents now throw everything in the mail bag and it gets transported by bus to the nearest district PO so rural post marks are really scarce as are registered letters from these rural postal agencies.
I have even tried to mail letters to myself from the district post office and the automated mailing centre on days where special slogans are supposed to be used, very hit and miss, sometimes I'm lucky and get a decent slogan and cancel sometimes it finds itself back to me without any post marks.
I have tried sending mail with foreign stamps, underpaid mail and mail with stamps that are no longer valid hoping for some sort of a auxiliary marking but all have reached my mail box either franked or without any franking at all.

Back in the 1930s collectors used to mail letter to themselves in foreign countries using a made up address and a clear return address. Occasionally these covers would go to an exotic country and then find their way back to the sender covered with great markings. I had a handful of these covers a few years ago but unfortunately I sold them all.

If I send a letter to a friend abroad I warn them by e mail that I would like them to save the whole envelope or wrapper, and I will collect it next time I see them.

USPS counter clerks used to oblige but might have equally dirty cancellers or not have any ink for them these days.

I have sent stamps to other family, to send back to get used stamps. Sometimes it seems impossible to get them cancelled! I have taken some to the post office to get cancelled. Very nice cancels seem very rare these days! I have thought of buying a canceling device, but feel it would be like cheating, guess I could act as an agent for the post and cancel those things! Seems if I had my own canceler things would start to look the same, and I like to have a variety of cancels.

Some 20 years ago when I was collecting used United States stamps I would send away for those pictorial postmarks. I would use a stamp I needed on the number 10 size envelope to mail everything to the post office, and enclose a number nine envelope for everything to be returned with a stamp I needed cancelled and finally a number six envelope with an appropriate stamp to get the pictorial postmark. I also enclosed an index card asking the postmaster to mail back the used stamp on the number 10 envelope and mail back the index card along with the number six envelope inside the number nine envelope. Always got great cancels. I have no idea if that would work these days.

I almost think it would be easier to get your own rubber canceling device. Maybe something with a simple circle or some lines? With a stamp pad, you could cancel each stamp and you'd have a nicely-canceled stamp. Or is that cheating?

Most window clerks will hand cancel whatever you hand them. I don't think their cancelling devices are likely to be dirty as some are worrying about, and it only takes them a few seconds to tap it onto your stamp and then you're out the door. Be aware that they might grab the canceller with the red ink, though, so if you don't want that be sure to say you want a "black ink" cancellation. That will give you a genuinely-canceled stamp, though one that didn't actually go through the mail. So is that cheating, also?

About a year ago, I received an auction catalog plastered with stamps to make up the rate. None were cancelled. I was at the counter, anyway, picking it up. I asked if she could cancel them. In one swift motion, faster than I was able to react to, she whipped out a ball point pen and ran it back and forth until they were all cancelled. In the middle, I yelped (probably the best word for the sound I made) but it didn't slow her down.

Postal workers see 'cancelling' as any way to mark the stamp so it will not be used again. I don't think they differentiate between ball point pen, magic marker, and CDS. They HAVE the CDS right there, but the pen is closer.

I am not saying this to complain - well, maybe a little - but more to warn. If you ask for them to be cancelled, and even specify that they be done with a 'canceller', you don't REALLY know what you will get.

I would just re-mail them. I HAVE noticed a lot of incoming 1st Class Mail without cancels lately. I suspect the PO is just so swamped that they don't even bother/worry anymore.

The red/magenta ink is legit but is made to run to show any tampering with packages or registered mail. Currently in the US, you might send stamped covers to be returned to any number of people that have Mailers Postmark Permits (MPP) that don't do mass mailings.

I just received a letter from UK, I ll post a picture later but both stamps were not cancelled.
I have a very strong feeling this is going to become a bigger issue in a couple years if this continues worldwide.
Someone mentioned a cancelling service. I have no idea these existed and I wonder if this is going to become a necessary part of collecting now