02 June 2015

Cancellation?


Letter send by Alan (the UK).

So you have a friend who writes a beautiful letter for you with perfect calligraphy, adds some little artistic items that you just love, creates an original envelope of biscuits packaging, chooses carefully some the stamps and sticks them like a rainbow...

And then the letter arrives in the post office and encounters this post office worker who makes this odd, let's say... cancellation.

10 comments:

  1. Yeah I hate it when that happens, I once had a beautiful stamp ruined (in my opinion) by a postal worked scribbling on it in pen. It seems many postal workers don't actually care about mail which is ironic and sad.

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    1. These aren't really "ruined". But I wonder why they do that. Any post office worker around to explain us...?

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    2. I don't know the real answer, but I am sure it is quicker to put a pen line through the stamps than to use the rubber stamp.

      What is interesting is that I think most of us, me included, find this method of cancellation very unappealing visually. I wonder why that is? i.e. what part of our brains looks at it and decides it is ugly vs attractive?

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    3. Your question is a bit more complicated, I'm afraid...

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    4. That is a good question! I was wondering that, too. My first thought was 'yek', how bad. And then I thought, as Eutrapèlia also says, 'blue is a nice colour!', and besides that, as creative people we should/might/are able to/could think out of the box, don't want to 'run with the sheep' and judge from an objective, fresh mind.
      Considering it an arty postal addition we (or at least I) wouldn't be bothered but like it. I do like it, but then the first though comes back in mind: 'a postage stamp earns a proper postmark'...

      So indeed a good question. To me these scratches cause mixed feelings (while at home I have some wasco or pencil scratches on the wallpaper since years, and I cherish them (while other people consider that bad :-) )

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    5. Even if I wrote the post in an ironic way. I don't think it must be considered intrinsically "ugly". Probably if I were a stamps collector I would be angry. But I am just a mail lover... So, I agree with Eutrapèlia that this is part of the creative process.And also it makes part of the letter's life. Like the strange things that happen to people every day... :)

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  2. I think it looks like part of a creative process. In this case, with this blue color, I do not dislike it at all!

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    Replies
    1. People on Twitter say "that's postal vandalism by the post office" :/

      It makes part of this letter0s adventures,anyway.

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  3. By the way, the Alice stamp is stunning!

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Thank you for coming. All your comments make me extremely happy.