Hi folks,
I got some cards from Lithuania 
lately and they are now all bearing an “Einschreiben” (registered mail) sticker. My mailwoman is confused and so am I! I asked one of the senders and they say that Lithuanian post will do this now all the time.
That’s really confusing, as “Einschreiben” means they have to give the mail to you in person usually, it’s such an expensive service. Has that happened to you, too? And does it happen to you guys in other countries, too, that they’re delivering it as kind of highest class mail?
1 Like
I got a card from Lithuania on 30 Oct, and it came as normally.
Yes it happend to me too and I was not at home as it arrived. Had to drive to town to get it in the post offici.
I received a card from Lithuania on 5 October sent on 15 September. It came normally with Pirmenybine (Priority) sticker.
I received two lately and both had a label for registered mail (x2 because one was added in LT and here in DE it received another one… right over the stamp 
)
I asked the sender about it and she told me it now happens all the time and that postcrossers from LT are very mad about it.
1 Like
I have got one card with registered mail sticker from Lithuania 31 Oct, sent 22 Oct.
But seems our post in Belarus doesn’t register such mail, they just put it into mailbox as normally. 
1 Like
Exactly the same here. I’m really sad, as I like to post the stamps on my blog and I can’t remove the sticker without damaging the stamp. 
But of course it’s great that the cards are possibly being handled better with those labels.
1 Like
In October, I received two cards from Lithuania, both mailed the same month and just with nice stamps. No registered mail so far, and not traveling longer than usual.
A few days ago I also received a card with a “registered mail” sticker which covered a really beautiful stamp. Fortunately, I managed to peel the sticker off without damaging the stamp.
2 Likes
My postcard that I sent “normally” is travelling already for 27 days. I just hope they won’t think it is underpaid and thus they won’t deliver it.
Same here. I was so confused about receiving registered mail and had to go to the post office to get it. Mine was in an envelope, and even there they covered all the stamps.
1 Like
So it won’t be possible to avoid the stamp covering by using an envelope
A postcard sent from Lithuania to Europe costs respectively: normal mail - 0,75 EUR, priority mail - 0,81 EUR and registered mail (only priority shipping is possible) - 2,84 EUR. The difference is very significant, so either the Lithuanian postal workers are instructed to persuade customers to buy more expensive products, or (but this theory is less probable) the Lithuanian postcrossing users are fed up with postcards disappearing somewhere without a trace… and without registration by the recipients…
2 Likes
Seems like they’re doing this to priority mail now, as mine has a €0.81 stamp on it! To be fair, it arrived within just 2 days in Germany, so it seems to work very very well!
I think we are on the trail of solving this mystery: if I had to pay only additional 0.06 EUR for sending postcards as registered, I would do it with all my cards sent as part of postcrossing ;o)
1 Like
I wouldn’t - it’s a pain for most people having to go to the post office to retrieve your mail, since many people aren’t at home when the mail arrives. I never considered Lithuania a country with erratic mail service, postcards usually arrived safely and quickly, so I’m not sure I understand why the Lithuanian post thinks this is necessary.
I haven’t received a card from Lithuania for a month, but as someone who is interested in stamps, I’m already dreading receiving my next cards from there with stickers covering them up …
3 Likes
Hello! A Lithuanian here. Our post recently introduced a change in our postal system - all mail, including postcards, will become “automated”, which means that these stickers that look like registered mail (but are not, in fact, registered - we don’t pay for it, nor can we track it) will be put on all postcards and letters. In the barcode of the stickers information such as a recipient’s country, address and etc is contained, so that the machines can sort the postcards faster and easier - this is supposed to speed up our mail services. However, currently it is not very well organized - different post offices interpret these changes differently, so often various problems occur. Apparently this change confuses other countries’ postal workers as well (as it was mentioned here by some German postcrossers - you absolutely should not have to go to the post office to get our card sent to you!) - all Lithuanian postcrossers are upset with this change and I’m pretty sure they regret if it caused any problems for any of the recipients (we also know that some postcards get ruined when they put the sticker on the front side of the card, despite many of us leaving enough space for it on the written side!). It’s all new and looks like both the post offices and senders are confused and upset. For now, the stickers are put only on the mail that we send and not on the cards we receive but it’s only a question of time whether even more changes will take place. Also, take note that it’s very possible that not all people are familiar with these changes - the official statement released by the post was seen as very unclear and misleading by many. Some probably haven’t even heard of it and don’t leave space for the sticker and just drop their fully written cards into the postal boxes, which leads to post stamps getting covered and so on.
29 Likes
Thank you so much for clarifying! I hope everybody gets accustomed to it soon. The registered mail stickers are stuck on it by Deutsche Post definitely, so that’s not Lithuanian Post’s fault. I think our postal service just doesn’t know that just because it has a barcode, it’s not registered mail. I hope they’ll learn about it soon, having to pick up postcards at the post office is really inconvenient.
2 Likes
I haven’t received any postcards from Lithuania since August. I hope that the Lithuanian post will learn to put the stickers next to the stamp, not over it, and that the Italian post won’t get as confused as the German post… I’ll let you know when I receive one.
Some years ago, we had a big problem in Italy with postcards coming from the Netherlands: they were delivered by the private mail carrier Nexive (belonging to PostNL) and always had a big sticker covering the stamps. Many of us complained on Nexive’s Facebook page, but they claimed these stickers were necessary for their postmen and -women not to “get confused”. Anyway, it looks like this has changed in the last couple of years, so I hope this issue with Lithuanian postcards will be solved, too! 
1 Like
I wouldn’t - it’s a pain for most people having to go to the post office to retrieve your mail, since many people aren’t at home when the mail arrives. I never considered Lithuania a country with erratic mail service, postcards usually arrived safely and quickly, so I’m not sure I understand why the Lithuanian post thinks this is necessary
yes, you are right: it is painful to go to the post office and pick up an ordinary postcard from there, but … for me it is also very painful that many of my postcards do not reach the recipients (or maybe some users do not bother to register them ) and I do not have any evidence for postcrossing service support that I have fulfilled my obligation - but even so I will not receive anything in return, although the fault is the postal system or the carefree recipient of my card…
All the above considerations are, of course, pure theory, because the price of registered mail, both in Poland 18,90 PLN (4,20 EUR) and in Germany 3,50 EUR (yes, Poland is the winner in this competition ;o(, is an effective barrier against their implementation; o)