Non-United States Bank-Vended Postage Stamps

Cover sent from Taiwan to Austria, franked with a set of ATM issued to celebrate Chinese Year of the Monkey:

Note of Interest:

In the US Wells Fargo was the last bank to sell stamps through ATM's up until 2020 when they phased out the program.

Israel has been issuing Klusendorf, Frama and Doramat ATM vended stamps since around 1990. They are issued from vending machines, which have a location number. There are about 6 values in a set, and each machine has a unique location number. The machines are at about 11 locations. This means that there are hundreds to collect if you try to get each set from each machine. Then there are varieties such as different papers and phosphors. Then there are philatelic first day covers, maximum cards, and genuine postal use.The latest issues in 2022 are ATM fauna with birds and lizzards.

Kudos to rogdcam also. As a guess, the ever-increasing fee charged for using some bank other than your own was probably a factor in their demise. Plus, over here, many supermarkets, etc. will sell you a booklet of stamps at face. Meanwhile, you get to stand in line behind someone wrapping a package at the post office counter to buy one stamp. Go figure.

It is interesting how some people will just latch onto one phrase and then pursue their own agenda, completely ignoring what is written in the OP and following posts. I always expect thread creep; hijacking is not to my taste.

Could this be due to infection by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, estimated to infect up to 4 billion humans? It is often stated that it has no effect on humans but that is because there are no extensive solid studies except to determine the presence of T. gondii. Of course, if one has a pre-existing serious chronic illness then one more thing may prove to be dangerous and possibly fatal. That's certainly true with cats, one of the targeted hosts of T. gondii.

The other targeted hosts are rats, where T. gondii will live to reproduce after living inside a cat for some time. And that's not without effect, where there are major brain/behavior changes purposely designed to get a rat caught by a cat. First is the lack of sensitivity to the smell of cat urine, pretty subtle but quite effective in a critter that is hardwired to avoid that. Second is an increase in boldness, where rats normally follow walls and move where they are not exposed if they can help it, but instead just waltz out in the open making them a perfect target for lurking cats. Again, what is stated to be a hardwired trait is lost.

So, are humans like cat hosts or rat hosts or something else altogether? And, what is the effect of that combined with the average seven-second attention span of the typical internet user?

I'm sorry, @ hy-brasil that I'm one of the members who hijacked the meaning of the discussion.
As a non-speaker of the English language, there are possible misunderstandings of the meaning of the discussion. (as in this case)
What seems strange to me (like this exposure - I think it's already offensive - or have I misunderstood again?) is your lack of communication.
If you had answered me after my first post: "Get out of here, something else is being discussed" without getting upset, I would have deleted the post.
I'm sorry and please forgive me, it wasn't on purpose.

@hy-brasil,

there was no highjacking. I think the thread went off-track where I tried to explain cupram the difference between the ATM 'franks' that we know in Europe and the Automated Teller Machines that are cash dispensers in Europe.

A cash dispenser - as the word suggests: to dispense cash, not stamps or cans of soda - dispensing stamps is quite inconceivable in Europe.
Your initial thread tile did contain 'ATM.' You changed that.
In your original post, you did try to explain:




However, if you are unaware of differences of terminology between trhe USA and most of the world, that sentence does not clarify much.

The 'franks' are dispensed by



i.e., ones that dispense the item they are intended to dispense and require inserting or scanning your bank card.

Part of communication is considering how the message you send is received. You might consider whether you failed in sending out the message you wanted to send. Every country in Europe has its own word for the ATM/Cash Point.
My attempt to clarify the differences did not succeed.

Insinuating people are rats because you are not able to recognise much of the world is not the USA has its examples in history and also at the moment.

Folks are complaining about this thread, asking for staff to get involved. So here is my opinion.

First, the originator of a thread can set the scope of the thread in their first post. Other members (and Staff) then understand just how much latitude to expected in regard to the posts being on topic. When the original poster does not state their intended scope, then a broader scope can typically be expected. Without the scope being defined, 'wandering' is fairly common. Staff tends to support free-flowing directions especially if the original questions have been answered or the topic has already been fairly covered by other posts in thread.

So I recommend that to avoid frustrations by all parties, when anyone starting a new thread should communicate a more narrow scope if that is what they desire. If this happens, then other posters should respect the intent and the odds are better everyone will be 'on the same page'.

Secondly, we al know that philatelic terms are not well-defined and often change depending upon which part of the planet you live in. As such, we have to expect that there may be posts which seek to clarify the definition of certain terms and abbreviations. If this is not desired, then the original poster should provide their definition(s) in the first post. This will help prevent misunderstandings and limit the number of following posts seeking clarifications.
Don