Wondering if someone knows the answer to this. I apologize in advance if this is covered somewhere else or if this might seem like a silly question.
I recently was trying to swap but the person on the other end wanted a postmark from Canada on the postcards. I’ve not seen the postoffice postmark anything, do they even do that anymore and if so, how is that done?
Thank you in advance for any thoughts or suggestions. I apologize if I don’t click the like button on all the comments. Every time I click on the heart shape it says I’ve exhausted the number of likes I can issue.
Maybe you could just visit your local post office and request a hand-cancel (or show the staff this photo if they don’t know what you’re talking about )
I was able to get a hand cancel by asking, but it was obviously a strange request. He held out the stamp and said, you mean this?
It’s more work for them, so try to go when it’s not busy. Be sure to show that you only need it for one or 2 cards, not a box of 300 wedding invitations!
I was at a postal outlet in a Pharmaprix west of Montreal. It might be easier if you go to an official post office.
I wish those pictorial cancel places were closer to where I live. I’d love to be able to send those!
Pen cancels are the worst!!! They should be banned!!!
I just went to the post office and they took out a big square stamp and did what @duck2006 mentioned above in the image, but they did the square stamp on top of my pretty stamps and then told me that doesn’t mean they won’t take a black marker and still cross out the stamp.
I feel like maybe my ignorance was bliss, I felt better not knowing how it is handled.
I think the pen cancels have “evolved” quite bit (at least in Canada) as there were quite a few complaints in the forum about stamps being defaced/destroyed by black grease pen… but the last pen cancels I received from Canada looked like they were applied a bit more carefully – there was only a small pen mark on one edge of each stamp. Maybe they started caring about us Postcrossers
Yes, pen cancellations are frustrating but here’s a video that explains why - it’s mostly about stopping the multi-billion dollar stamp fraud industry that costs our postal systems billions of dollars every year.
But I find that 3/4 of my cards don’t get marked up at all because they’re going through the super sorting stations in Montreal or Mississauga.
you are entitled to have the postal worker hand cancel the stamps, I never felt bad asking them to do so as I paid the postage fees - I was even told that I can bundle or bag cards in batches and indicate you want them hand cancelled and deposit them in the mailbox and Canada Post will do as requested instead of sending them thru the sorting machine.
Hello friends!
Out of 4 cards from Canada, 3 didn’t have a postmark at all.
In fact, one of them was actually postmarked in my local post office. I wonder what is going on in there. To actually go through the work of processing incoming card. That is just bizzare.
Here: Canada stamps. Postmark: North and West Yorkshire - UK.