Beautiful stamps that go missing

I have many beautiful stamps. When I send postcards, I use these.
But I hear, when we send mail with beautiful stamps, they will disapear in some countries. The main reason is robbery by mailmen.
How is your country? I only want to know the truth.

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I haven’t heard such things been happening here in the Philippines.

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It happened to me once. My Japanese friend sent me a package with a lot of Versailles no Bara stamps on it. Some were stolen but a lot remained ! Maybe someone was a fan of Versailles no Bara and took one or two. It’s okay. I hope he or her still cherish those stamps today as I do (◍•ᴗ•◍)
Anyway, don’t worry about those stories, Amagata-san. I think it’s not a common thing !

Oh, and welcome !

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It might happen, not sure if there are countries where it happens more often. Recently I had a very sad case. I received a beautiful FDC from Poland with EUROPA stamp series with beautiful lynx stamp- at least it should have been there… but there was just an empty spot

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I think it makes sense to steal stamps for post office workers in sender’s country rather then receiver’s. I guess in theory you can reuse stolen stamps if those are not cancelled.
I usually glue my stamps with pretty strong glue stick (I’m just don’t want to lick them) and I could safely say to you that it’s impossible to stole my stamps without completely damaging card itself. So, if you afraid for your stamps, and if you use stamps that you have to lick, use strong glue.
Although I wonder what stamps collectors thinking about it. I hope I’m not damaging my stamps for receiver with glue :sweat_smile:

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I have just had my stamps scribbled on

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I heard about the cases especially countries of Latin America and Africa.

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this often happens in UK when Stamps are not canceled it is then like cancelling it afterwards. very sad indeed

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I can answer as a collector: those stamps have been damaged by glue and they are not value of anything to the collectors of stamps. The stealing is not any big problem but the damaging of stamps is.

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Glad I didn’t send cards to devoted stamp collectors yet, if I remember correctly :cold_sweat::cold_sweat::cold_sweat:

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I had a trader in India who used great stamps on his cards to me. I got most of them, but employees over there pilfered some of them. The bums…

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Oh yes, there is such problem. Several years ago I received en envelop from Turkey with only traces of glue and scratches on the stamp place. Not far from now I received an envelop from the Netherlands with 2 beautiful stamps, but it turned out that originally it was sent with 3 stamps.
Besides my own experience, I’ve seen many stories in Russian VK postrossers’ group about stolen stamps. They even detected the sorting centre in Saint Petersburg where stamps are often stolen and replaced by definitives.

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When we apply glue on top of the adhesive layer of the stamp, sometimes that might not stick well. Instead of licking, you can use a drop of water to activate the adhesive. This technique works really well for me.

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Well, I’m from Brazil and it never happened to me. Of course it can happen eventually, no matter to where you send your beautiful stamps. As you can see for other people’s comments, it happens in Europe and Canada sometimes, too. So, I think it’s a bit detrimental to say this happens mostly in “Latin America and Africa”, as if all the countries that are part of those continents/regions are the same or as if they necessarily have a bad mail system.
Actually, at least in Brazil, mailmen probably won’t give it a second glance, simply because it’s not common to collect postcards or stamps here and they have too much work to do and too little time. If someone ever steal your stamps in Brazil, I doubt it’ll be the mailman.
I think that, sometimes, there are a lot of misconceptions about some countries here in Postcrossing (as in other parts of the internet and even outside it) but it’s also a great place to get in contact with other people and know more about their culture, if we open our minds to it.

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I received many postcards with stamps stolen/missing. Almost all from US. Some from Canada,Turkey, India, China, Russia. Also with a few envelopes happened too.

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I can’t imagine how American stamps come off the postcard! They’re impossible to remove once they’re stuck.

I also don’t understand :joy:. But most of them were older stamps, so they have some value as collection. Maybe before it had a different glue, I don’t know. I exchange a lot and it’s sad to see in the photo proofs the nice stamps people use and than receiving the card missing them.

Yeah, the older ones are more vulnerable (and better looking), so I can see how it could happen!

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Agreed, but I once had a US postcard that arrived to Ireland with the stamps and the postcard picture gone: nothing left but the message and address (hooray for finepoint Sharpie marker!)

China has beautiful stamps and I have gotten cards twice where I could tell the stamps had been taken off.