Damaged cards

Most modern postal services have some kind of sorting machines - there are still many countries that don’t but most countries in North America & large parts of Europe do. But it’s fun to try & find out!

İt’s kinda cool actually.

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Although I am new at postcrossing, I have received mail in the US for over six decades. I am sure I could count on one hand the number of times I have received damaged mail in a plastic bag. Nips, scars, and tears, oh yes, quite a different matter!

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I would say about a third of the “naked” cards I received are damaged in some way. I also admit I am pickier at how I define “damaged” than others here in the Forum.

Yeah, when the card is torn or even ripped in half, I think we all agree. In addition, if the card is smeared, smudged, or scraped by the machinery, I call that “damaged.” I think if the postmark appears on the image side of the card that is also “damaged.” I am also now getting a bit irritated when instead of a cancellation the stamps are scribbled through with a pen or (even better) a thick black marker, and I think that is also “damage.”

I know that a lot of people call such things “travel marks” and welcome them, but they just make me sad.

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This card from Latvia is the worst damaged card I have received so far. ID part was missing too if I remember correctly (I have binned the card so cannot check it). Fortunately things like that don’t happen often, only once to me so far and I have received over 11.000 cards and have been writing letters and postcards since 1967.

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Great video from a stamp expert on pen cancelling - thanks to @yudi for posting

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Helsinki Post wants to tell me my postcard is damaged… by placing a sticker right in the middle of the postcard :joy: Come on, it was only wrinkled!

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It is better to get a card damaged than never receiving it 🥲😅

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Last summer, when our regular postman was off sick, we had a spate of postcards being bent as the postman put them through our [normal sized] letter box. We don’t have a regular postman any more, and fortunately have not had problems until this happened today. The postman had delivered a parcel as well, so was still there, waiting for me to pick it up off the doorstep, and I asked him why he’d had to bend the postcard. “To get it through your letter box.” Hopefully, he listened to my plea not to do it again.

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Received a lovely postcard from Ukraine today… that was nearly torn in 3 pieces. Arrived in the mail box without even an “oops! We damaged your card” bag.

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It is really annoying! :((

My first fake fur postcard came home damaged…
But I’m still happy to receive it. :heart:

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I’ve had a card arrive in a USPS envelope ripped, but the most damaged parcel I’ve ever received was an envelope of stickers from an RR. The envelope had been soaked through with liquid causing all the stickers to either lose their gum or for them to stick all together in a lump.

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A while ago this card arrived from China. Luckily it still had the address and the ID on it - I actually quite like it and decided to consider this to be mail art :woman_shrugging: :grinning:

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This card was delivered today, from Taiwan!

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Nooo :sob: What they heck did they do to this poor card? :scream:

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Came in this bag

4 digits of the official ID are visible and all of my address. Postcrossing is researching for the ID

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Oof! Well, it’s good to know that they care… I would say that this incident did inconvenience you, though :grimacing:

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I love the image of Putin riding a bear😂

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This card turned into an interesting collage during it’s travel!
The front has a hatch :grin: and a postage stamp attached the wrong way up (from some other mail)

And the message side has many postage stamps from other cards I guess, also the glue side up, and parts from other mails showing.

Also I was surprised it only travelled little over 30 days.
Part of my name is missing, as is part of the street name and part of the city name.

Even though it’s sad to see this suffered card, it looks so cool, and like it took the most fun out of it’s travel time :stuck_out_tongue:

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