These stamps have landed in my friend Bryon's mailbox during the last week: pen strikes on stamps from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Canada.
Some questions arise here. Like...
Who makes the scribbles? How long does it take to find a pen, hold up the delivery process and do the deed? At the source post office? The destination post office? What is going through the postal workers mind when they inscribe the scribbles? Are they some kind of person who think the worlds economy will be cheated by the possibility an uncancelled stamp could be used a second time?
And, especially: Is there any country Mail Monsters free?
Three times in a week is quite the surprise!
ReplyDeleteI hope no more are going to land in your mailbox!
DeleteExploring Stamps has a youtube video on pen cancels. Informative. Some of the pen cancels can be quite artistic.
ReplyDeleteOne of the envelopes I have got appears on that video :D
DeleteI always think it shows a certain lack of respect - for the stamps and the collectors.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I've been watching these videos... thank you :)
I have read different opinions among collectors. Some say that they prefer pen cancellations than no cancellations. But, definitely... Why cannot them cancel the stamps properly? :|
Deleteit saddens me to see that more and more countries are adopting this cancellation method, if i may call it a cancellation in the first place, since there is no date nor place of where that piece of mail was mailed from. And i belong in the category of people who prefer NO cancellation at all than a pen cancellation :)
ReplyDeleteI agree. I don't wee why a pen cancellation "shows the trip" of that envelope/postcard. How you can say a scribble has been made by the postal system?
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