Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
A large mailer arrived yesterday, one of those dark tan mailers that have a pull tab on the back and filled with a kind of felt sawdust added for padding.
It immediately looked odd to me.
The outside of the mailer had a strip of Santa .37 cent stamps that had been postmarked in red but the stamps were at some time affixed to a white background, cut from that mailer and affixed with tape to this mailer, a media mail label was affixed, one that had been printed from a printer, also taped over and placed onto the mailer--it must have originated with the USPS damage department unlike other postage labels printed there is no to or from (but that was an unknown to me at time of inspecting the mailer). A small sender return address rectangle with white background was also apparently cut out from the original mailer and taped to the dark tan mailer.
I pulled the opening tab on the back of the mailer. I found a clear plastic bag with USPS logo. At first I thought the sender was including a collectible souvenir--such bags discussed here some time ago have a name among collectors that escapes me. When items are damaged in the mail, the USPS places the damaged items in the bag and forwards along to the recipient with their printed apology on the plastic bag.
The room was dimly lit so the condition of the contents were not immediately apparent to me. I quick withdrew my hand from the interior of the bag; it was covered in lubricating oil. I brought the bag over to bright light, switched it on and observed the contents of the bag with horror--the three black Harding franked covers all completely soaked in the unknown lubricant.
Imagine all the covers and stamps that have for one reason or another been destroyed by wars, fires, moth or mouse consumption, USPS industrial accidents, among others.
I felt incredibly sad when I thought about these covers, all dated 1924, surviving the ravages of time until the fateful day they met their fate on, I presume, a malfunctioning USPS "assembly line."
If you have a recent story involving such USPS accidents that destroyed your covers or stamps, please feel free to share the pain.
Bruce
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Ouch! Tragic story. My mishaps with the USPS pale in comparison but there are circumstances that spell minor disasters with my mail delivery. My mail carriers insist on carrying the next house's mail in one exposed hand while walking up the street. That's usually okay. But if it's raining, all bets are off - the mail is still carried in an exposed hand (what is he or she thinking?) which guarantees that all the mail will be bent and creased, and sometimes very, very wet. Latest delivery of a first day cover was a very sad case in point.
Jim
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Makes you wonder how many mailbox fires they have that they would have a rubber stamp for the situation...
Don
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Cheap seller should not have sent those items through Media Mail. First class large envelope for the weight indicated on the mailing label would have cost $1.61, and would have received quicker and better handling. I'm not so sure that the post cards qualify under Media Mail either.
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Jim: We have the same problem here: The mail when it's raining often arrives either soaked or semi-crushed from the grasp of the carrier. I think I may have mentioned this phenomenon on here once before.
Michael: Actually it appears that the seller did not use Media Mail but used those 4
Santa .37 cent stamps which were cut from the original mailer which must have been totally demolished; his return address was also cut from the original mailer and affixed to that dark tan mailer. Since the contents were super saturated with the oil, the USPS worker must have chosen the larger mailer which as I mentioned was the type that had a "cushion of shredded felt material" in between double walls. Perhaps this mailer was chosen with the expectation that some of that lubricant would leak out of the bag but be soaked up by the crushed felt. I could be wrong but the Media Mail seems to have been a label placed there by the USPS maybe because it was a new mailer? But the 4 Santa stamps would have been enough to mail three covers to me by 1st Class service.
Bruce
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The three Santa Claus stamps would be necessary to cover the full Media Mail rate of $2.63 (the package was actually underpaid by 1 cent, unless there was a 1 cent stamp that the post office didn't carry over to the new envelope).
The stamps are canceled December 8, 2017, which is the same date as the Media Mail postage label.
Many sellers think that they are tricking the system and saving money by using Media Mail. In this case (and in most others), the package would have been cheaper (by over $1) to mail it as a first class large envelope.
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Having been round and through a Royal Mail sorting centre and seen how the mail is handled it is no surprise that items arrive damaged.
However it is a very very small percentage of the total.
I would recommend every stamp collector to visit their nearest large mail handling centre and see the process for themselves.
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I reached out to the seller and asked him if he mailed the covers in the dark tan mailer. He indicated as I suspected that he mailed the covers in a white mailer--the stamps and his return address were cut from that oil soaked mailer and taped to the tan mailer used by the USPS who also printed out the Media Mail label which when affixed to the USPS supplied mailer made up the Media Mail rate. Mailer was surprised that the damaged mailer wasn't returned to him instead.
Happy New Year!
Bruce
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the mail must go on.... not back.
unless it was insured, USPS would move it forward, not return it
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Bruce, the oil that damaged your piece of mail could have been olive oil. My daughter studied in Italy one summer and mailed us a 4-pack of olive oil back to the U.S. The package arrived with oil all over it, yet none of the 4 bottles inside had broken, which means some other olive oil package must have broken along the way.
Scanned below is a "body bag" my wife received last winter. She took one look at it and threw it in the trash can. She never opened it. Later, of course, I took it out of the trash and saved it. I never told her, some things in a marriage are better left unsaid. Some of you in my Stamporama family will understand, this is what we do, "this is us."
Linus
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One hazard of buying liquid things internationally is that they are sometimes shipped in un pressurized cargo holds. Apparently the contents will expand, like boiling over.
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This arrived yesterday. The stamps within survived undamaged!!!!
At least the apology is larger than the warning about suffocating babies and children!!
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10:06:55am
Oh the humanity!
A large mailer arrived yesterday, one of those dark tan mailers that have a pull tab on the back and filled with a kind of felt sawdust added for padding.
It immediately looked odd to me.
The outside of the mailer had a strip of Santa .37 cent stamps that had been postmarked in red but the stamps were at some time affixed to a white background, cut from that mailer and affixed with tape to this mailer, a media mail label was affixed, one that had been printed from a printer, also taped over and placed onto the mailer--it must have originated with the USPS damage department unlike other postage labels printed there is no to or from (but that was an unknown to me at time of inspecting the mailer). A small sender return address rectangle with white background was also apparently cut out from the original mailer and taped to the dark tan mailer.
I pulled the opening tab on the back of the mailer. I found a clear plastic bag with USPS logo. At first I thought the sender was including a collectible souvenir--such bags discussed here some time ago have a name among collectors that escapes me. When items are damaged in the mail, the USPS places the damaged items in the bag and forwards along to the recipient with their printed apology on the plastic bag.
The room was dimly lit so the condition of the contents were not immediately apparent to me. I quick withdrew my hand from the interior of the bag; it was covered in lubricating oil. I brought the bag over to bright light, switched it on and observed the contents of the bag with horror--the three black Harding franked covers all completely soaked in the unknown lubricant.
Imagine all the covers and stamps that have for one reason or another been destroyed by wars, fires, moth or mouse consumption, USPS industrial accidents, among others.
I felt incredibly sad when I thought about these covers, all dated 1924, surviving the ravages of time until the fateful day they met their fate on, I presume, a malfunctioning USPS "assembly line."
If you have a recent story involving such USPS accidents that destroyed your covers or stamps, please feel free to share the pain.
Bruce
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re: Damaged By The USPS
Ouch! Tragic story. My mishaps with the USPS pale in comparison but there are circumstances that spell minor disasters with my mail delivery. My mail carriers insist on carrying the next house's mail in one exposed hand while walking up the street. That's usually okay. But if it's raining, all bets are off - the mail is still carried in an exposed hand (what is he or she thinking?) which guarantees that all the mail will be bent and creased, and sometimes very, very wet. Latest delivery of a first day cover was a very sad case in point.
Jim
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re: Damaged By The USPS
Makes you wonder how many mailbox fires they have that they would have a rubber stamp for the situation...
Don
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11:45:59am
re: Damaged By The USPS
Cheap seller should not have sent those items through Media Mail. First class large envelope for the weight indicated on the mailing label would have cost $1.61, and would have received quicker and better handling. I'm not so sure that the post cards qualify under Media Mail either.
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02:49:44pm
re: Damaged By The USPS
Jim: We have the same problem here: The mail when it's raining often arrives either soaked or semi-crushed from the grasp of the carrier. I think I may have mentioned this phenomenon on here once before.
Michael: Actually it appears that the seller did not use Media Mail but used those 4
Santa .37 cent stamps which were cut from the original mailer which must have been totally demolished; his return address was also cut from the original mailer and affixed to that dark tan mailer. Since the contents were super saturated with the oil, the USPS worker must have chosen the larger mailer which as I mentioned was the type that had a "cushion of shredded felt material" in between double walls. Perhaps this mailer was chosen with the expectation that some of that lubricant would leak out of the bag but be soaked up by the crushed felt. I could be wrong but the Media Mail seems to have been a label placed there by the USPS maybe because it was a new mailer? But the 4 Santa stamps would have been enough to mail three covers to me by 1st Class service.
Bruce
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03:14:50pm
re: Damaged By The USPS
The three Santa Claus stamps would be necessary to cover the full Media Mail rate of $2.63 (the package was actually underpaid by 1 cent, unless there was a 1 cent stamp that the post office didn't carry over to the new envelope).
The stamps are canceled December 8, 2017, which is the same date as the Media Mail postage label.
Many sellers think that they are tricking the system and saving money by using Media Mail. In this case (and in most others), the package would have been cheaper (by over $1) to mail it as a first class large envelope.
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03:55:05pm
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re: Damaged By The USPS
Having been round and through a Royal Mail sorting centre and seen how the mail is handled it is no surprise that items arrive damaged.
However it is a very very small percentage of the total.
I would recommend every stamp collector to visit their nearest large mail handling centre and see the process for themselves.
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02:27:43pm
re: Damaged By The USPS
I reached out to the seller and asked him if he mailed the covers in the dark tan mailer. He indicated as I suspected that he mailed the covers in a white mailer--the stamps and his return address were cut from that oil soaked mailer and taped to the tan mailer used by the USPS who also printed out the Media Mail label which when affixed to the USPS supplied mailer made up the Media Mail rate. Mailer was surprised that the damaged mailer wasn't returned to him instead.
Happy New Year!
Bruce
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re: Damaged By The USPS
the mail must go on.... not back.
unless it was insured, USPS would move it forward, not return it
Login to Like
this post
re: Damaged By The USPS
Bruce, the oil that damaged your piece of mail could have been olive oil. My daughter studied in Italy one summer and mailed us a 4-pack of olive oil back to the U.S. The package arrived with oil all over it, yet none of the 4 bottles inside had broken, which means some other olive oil package must have broken along the way.
Scanned below is a "body bag" my wife received last winter. She took one look at it and threw it in the trash can. She never opened it. Later, of course, I took it out of the trash and saved it. I never told her, some things in a marriage are better left unsaid. Some of you in my Stamporama family will understand, this is what we do, "this is us."
Linus
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this post
re: Damaged By The USPS
One hazard of buying liquid things internationally is that they are sometimes shipped in un pressurized cargo holds. Apparently the contents will expand, like boiling over.
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this post
10:09:01am
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re: Damaged By The USPS
This arrived yesterday. The stamps within survived undamaged!!!!
At least the apology is larger than the warning about suffocating babies and children!!
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