Seeking Advice To Prevent Postcards From Being Damaged By USPS Sorting Machines

Hello everyone,

I have a habit of buying postcards when I travel, affixing stamps that are related to the city I'm visiting, and sending them home as a way to document my trips. Unfortunately, many of my postcards have been damaged by USPS sorting machines, causing ripples in the paper and ruining the overall look.

I'm trying to figure out how to prevent this and would love some advice. Here's what I'm considering:

1. Going to a post office and politely asking for a hand-cancellation. However, I understand that even with hand-cancellation, the postcard might still go through sorting machines.

2. Using a non-machinable surcharge stamp, though I'm unsure if this is helpful for postcards. I've heard that postcards aren't typically categorized as non-machinable, so this stamp may not prevent machine processing.

For those with experience, would option #2 make any difference? Or are there other suggestions to help ensure my postcards arrive without being damaged by machines?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Short answer: get hand-back service from the office of mailing. It will also get you a postmark from the actual city you are visiting rather than a centralized processing center.

Longer answer: mail processing is increasingly mechanized and at increasingly faster conveyor speeds. The facing/cancelling process is the first of many steps as the mail is sorted and resorted to finally get to a carrier-delivery-sequence tray which your carrier gets at the start of the route. A mail piece with a hand cancel will still go through all the remaining sorting steps (and often gets overcancelled with a machine mark). Consider that a mail piece dropped in a blue box will never be seen individually by human eyes until the carrier is at your box. Lastly, the machinery is adjusted for the average mail piece, with postcards being typically thinner can lead to misfeeds, etc.

Peeling: I am seeing the same issue of peeling in the same spot on my postcards. I expect this same issue is happening in many of the USPS sorting facilities.

In addition to postcards, I often encounter similar peeling of water-activated (lick-and-stick) stamps on envelopes if the stamp is affixed in the path of your horizontal peel.

I have no solution for you, sorry.

The only solution I see is that when you have your postcard hand-cancelled that you ask the postcard back from the postal employee and take it with you to your home.

Thank you, everyone, for your input!

@John Becker: Is the "hand-back service" offered at any post offices in the US, and possibly in Europe as well? As @hansthedutchman mentioned above, all I need to do is have my postcard hand-cancelled and then ask the postal employee to return it to me, correct?

In case I want to send a postcard to someone else (not taking home for myself), would the non-machinable stamp work?

I travel frequently and have never heard of the possibility to have a postcard hand-cancelled and handed back to you. Then again, I have never inquired about it. Mail, sometimes, is damaged. Most of the time, it looks fine. Corners may be a little rough, but I think that happens when the postman carries them.

In the Netherlands and Scandinavia, there are no post offices. You can buy stamps from certain retail outlets such as stationers and supermarkets. In Sweden, I have come across a counter at a petrol station. Some have parcel points, but they do not handle letters and cards. You must drop them in post boxes.

In the UK and Germany, there are post offices and post office counters at retailers. In the UK, there are retailers that just sell stamps. Smaller towns may not have post offices at all. The mail is cancelled at huge sorting offices.

In Southwest Europe, France, Austria, and Switzerland, there are post offices. However, these countries, also, have huge sorting facilities. If they have hand cancels, they, usually, are for documents and not for letters and postcards. Maybe, you will find a clerk that is willing to cancel your stamp and hand the postcard back, but I expect you might struggle to get one stamped.

For the remainder of Central Europe, my experience is that the staff at post offices are very helpful. They will go out of their way to help you. I, often, hand my postcards to a clerk who cancels them and puts them in a postbag. So, they do have hand cancels. However, these are countries where they may stick to the rules and not hand you back the item. It, sure, is worth to try. Explain and have patience with them. Do not be surprised when they will refuse doing anything but depositing the cards in the postbag, even if they are addressed to them.

My reply above is entirely US-based (consistent with the "USPS" in the thread's title)

I suspect using a non-machineable stamp will fail a significant amount of the time. A postcard is inherently machineable, regardless of the stamp you put on it, and some downstream postal worker will divert it into the normal mailstream (thinking "stupid customer, doesn't even know how to mail a card" or interpreting it as a convenience overpayment of some sort) and it will go through several sorters.

For "hand-back", this is a procedure within the Postal Operations Manual on collector/philatelic mail. I have no idea on any non-US regulations. One still has to find a cooperative clerk or carry a copy of the regulations with you to educate the clerk. They are in this thread about half way down the discussion here:
https://goscf.com/t/86972&whichpage=1#806680

When traveling abroad and mailing a card back home to yourself or a friend, any cards will ultimately be run through several sorters in the U.S and you'll get whatever damage you get.

I send many postcrossing as I enjoy doing postcard exchange from across the world. It is very difficult to ensure a postcard not get damaged by a sorting machine.

In the US, your best bet is to hand them to the postal clerk at their counter and ask for a hand cancel. They will be put with other mail and sorted by machine.

Whether or not a postcard gets damaged or not depends on the postcard. One that is a little thicker than the normal card and has a semi-gloss or matte finish will likely do better than glossy thin cards. Also be aware that the cheap touristy cards can be poorly made - simply a photo plaster onto some thin backing. "Linen" cards MAY make it unscathed ad I have had some beautiful ones reach me from abroad with no tears (or at most very minor ones on the backside).

Thank you all for your pieces of advice :)
I'm so happy to have received two postcards that were postmarked and undamaged during my trip to Colorado.

At the PO in Golden, CO, after I explained that I'm a traveler and collecting stamps, the lady agreed to stamp my postcard right away.
At the PO in Morrison, CO, the post office woman seemed reluctant and told me that all postage-stamped mail could not be returned to the customer. However, seeing that I politely asked, she stamped it for me anyway. Luckily, I didn't have to bring up the "hand-back" rule that John had shown me earlier.

At Red Rock Amphitheater (the theater is AMAZING, by the way)






I had a wonderful time on the trip, and these postcards are keepsakes of those memories :)

Request the hand-back, say thank you, then drop it into an envelope all stamped and addressed, sealed and give it to the clerk to be cancelled and sent on it way. You can do this for friends or for yourself.