Hi! Yesterday I received two postcards with stamps that were not redeemed. Has anyone ever had this, and what does it mean?
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What do you mean by âredeemed?â
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Do you mean that the stamps are not cancelled by a postmark?
Yes, I had several of them. Deutsche Pist does not cancel mail coming in from abroad and e. g. Posti in Finland often does not cancel their mail, so if I get a card ftom Finland it is quite likely that it is not cancelled.
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This may help
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Not really. It is a little nerdy, but does nor answer the question what the original poster meant with âredeemedâ, at least I did not find that answer.
He meant cancelled and he was wondering why they were not marked upâŚthis article provide explanations for him
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Hi! I was referring to the âextinguishingâ of stamps when a stamp remains on them. I was extremely surprised when I received stamps without this seal
I may have misused that word, sorry. I just didnât quite understand how to translate the Russian word âгаŃониоâ
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âCancelledâ is the correct translation.
As for cancelling, seems the top one doesnât need the cancellation - it looks more like a mark of payment than a classic stamp
As far as I know some modern stamps have a code hidden in it (sometimes only visible in UV or they are cancelled by UV visible marks something, Iâm not sure⌠here the link: UV visible marks in stamps), so they are âregisteredâ in the system and canât be used twice (thatâs the purpose of cancellation - to avoid secondary usage). But in case of Spanish stamps itâs just seems the outgoing mail wasnât cancelled, and it happens with received mail from some countries (also the opposite thing happens - when post cancels stickers and washi tapes)
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@Xute Thank you for the explanation. I suspected that this was the case. @fox_and_lyu - the top item looks like a meter stamp or label, while the bottom appear to be stamps with perforations.
I rarely get cards that havenât been canceled primarily because I donât collect used US cards. But I will share an observation. More than 15-20 years ago, it wasnât uncommon to see ads in stamp magazines for US stamps âuncancelled / ungummed.â These were from dealers selling to other dealers or to those who do heavy mailing. These dealers were soaking off these stamps from envelopes and reselling them - clearly illegal.
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Yes, itâs not that uncommon. When not hand cancelled at the post office, it happens now and then in Italy not to have the stamps cancelled (maybe the sorting machines were out of ink, maybe they were just skippedâŚ)
Recently iâve got a postcard in the mail and the stamps werenât canceled at all!!
Not by a stamp, not by a penmark or something⌠nothing. That was so surprising to me!
I think itâs pretty rare. It is very cool though!
Anyone got anything like this before as well??
Actually, it is more common than you thought. In Belgium they donât cancel anymore at the post office. If you ask for it, they say they donât do that anymore or that the machine will cancel the stamps (this is not true as you can notice) or they donât know how to press the seal on the stamps because they are too young to see canceled stamps (this is not a joke, this is a real experience that I was living !). So this is a problem to get canceled stamps in a Belgian post office. The stamps with Belgian frank as facial value are almost always canceled.
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I have received a couple last week: uncanceled from Canada and from Finland.
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Oh really! I did not know that.
Although my card wasnât from Belgium, but from Canada.
I think itâs special that it traveled all the way to me in The Netherlands without any cancelation 
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Oooh⌠mine was from Canada as well. Maybe itâs something they donât do there?
UK post is rarely cancelled as well.
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Yes, all the time. It is pretty common.
The post office has a heavy workload and was overlooked.
Canada seems not to provide postmarks much anymore, in my experience.
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