Missing stamps

Hi all - not sure if this is the right place for the question but i would be interested to see if anyone has had the same problem posting from the uk. I send lots of swaps via the forum and also a few official cards and I’ve not had any problems until this month. Out of a batch of cards I sent late Feb three cards have arrived without both stamps. They were sent on the same date, to different countries and using stamps from different sets. Two of them have franking marks where the stamps would be and I’m waiting to see about the third. Has anyone else had anything similar and did you find out what caused it?

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Sorry to hear this has happened. I had something similar happen to a postcard I received. To be honest I could not believe it. It was pretty clear the stamps had been removed by someone. Reported it to the post office but apparently nothing can be done.

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I suspected the first time they were removed but wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. It seems more obvious now there is an issue. I wondered if it was worth reporting with it being a few times but perhaps they will just dismiss it then. Thanks for letting me know about your experience

Oh no, how annoying! I can’t say this has happened to me yet, but of course I could have sent official cards where the recipient has not mentioned it. I have received damaged cards / stamps but cant recall a deliberate removed stamp. Surely if someone wanted to steal the stamp they would just make the card disappear? After all plenty never get to their destination for whatever reason. I’ve had a whole batch including a greeting card to a friend, pre-pandemic, be delayed by a fortnight and one of those (to an active member in Germany) disappear, and another small batch that were posted together all expire, again the problem clearly at my end, but no obviously removed stamps (yet).

It’s bizarre I must admit. Maybe a problem with a machine when they get postmarked? (I’m not really familiar with what happens when they leave here). The last one didn’t even have a postmark it arrived without the postmark and without the stamps? Ah well I think I’ll have to chalk it up to bad luck and hope it won’t happen again (they were really nice stamps too :frowning:)

Yes let’s hope it was a one-off but of course the nice stamps going missing makes it doubly suspicious.

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Yes, it happened to two of my cards sent in January - one to USA and one to Germany. After some experimentation on my part I worked out the problem. The postcards had a slightly shiny reverse (the kind you have to write on with a biro as liquid ink doesn’t dry well) and the stamps were special stamps not the self-adhesive type. Somewhere between being postmarked and arriving at destination the stamps just fell off!

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I’ve been told by a couple of people recently that they got cards from me without stamps. I suspect that Royal Mail just bought a dodgy batch of glue!

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