The Finnish post discontinues special cancellations after 31 May 2023

[Regndroppar]

The Finnish postcrossing community got another a sad piece of news today in a month’s time when Posti announced discontinuing special cancellations after May. Currently there are special cancellations at 20 different locations in Finland (e.g. Helsinki main post office, Turku Castle, Moomin Museum in Tampere, Santa Claus’ main post office in Rovaniemi) and only the special cancellation of Santa Claus’ main post office remains in use after May. Also the first day special cancellations will continue.

https://www.posti.fi/en/customer-support/news-releases/20230417_erikoisleimat_en

Instead cards and letters can be stamped with a side cancellation, but not to void the stamp, because postal items will be mechanically cancelled. (Errrm… )

This is sad because special cancellations are almost the only way to guarantee my cards from Finland are cancelled at all. This self-destruction of our postal services is almost too sad to watch.

[delda]

Oh wow, what a sad news. Good thing that my Finnish varieties of Ukraine support maxicards were created last year thanks to dear @tiitinen.

[redteapost]

I’m sorry to hear that. It’s always sad to see a unique tradition or service come to an end, but I hope that the postal services in Finland will continue to be reliable for Postcrossing needs.

[Bowyum]

As I am a fan of special postmarks and hand cancelled mail in general, I am sad about this. But I have to say that in all the years I have been Postcrossing, I never saw any examples of these - even though I say on my profile that I like hand cancels. So I have to wonder if they got much usage.

In Australia there are currently close to 300 pictorial postmarks in use. It will be a sad day if Australia Post decides to do away with them.

[xxxyyy]

I think many of these are in places you don’t go on your daily postings.
Here where I live, closest is 2 hours or 200 kilometers from me, I believe. And if I’m at that town, I might not get to the place just to get the cancellation, as I know the receiver might not even notice it

Here we used to have a special postmark, and I used to drop my mail to that box, until someone told it is not done anymore. It had turned into a normal box.

I can get a pictorial postmark from an island, but I need to take a ferry, so it’s often queueing and at a place I should go there by car, so that means hours of time to get that postmark. And not being sure if it’s there. Last time it was stamped right over the stamp, so the image was not so visible at all.

Same with a holiday spa - their postmark was very pale and over the stamp. I noticed it’s a special cancellation only because I knew the normal is round one.

Edit.
Now I’m not sure, maybe I am talking about the side cancellation
But, reason why people don’t use those special ones could include: they are in places where you don’t go, not guaranteed to get one/nicely stamped one, and the receiver might not be interested

Edit 2, or is the side postmark like the sea mail? So it’s marked with that, and then taken (by the sea mailer or similar) to the “normal” post office, where it’s officially postmarked?

Edit 3, got the answers in Finnish forum → sea mail etc. is the side postmark and not official, pictorial postmarks are the special ones (even when they are not stamped nicely and visibly). (Maybe that’s also why these are stopped: there is not people who know how to stamps these? I have old mails where the special postmarks are either stamped twice, or at least nicely on the edge of the stamps, so the postmark image/text is seen).

[Robin67]

[ravishing]

The future of Finnish postal services doesn’t look good.

[hans62vdberg]

Finland is not the first one. The Netherlands did the same, but then regretted it and brought back a possibility for certain “pakketpunten” to cancel privately, but only with name of the city, nr of the point and date. Nationally they closed many sortingcentrums and made them one, so the cancellations are down to a handful only. Postoffices have dissapeared 95%, and the places where you now post your mail, like the Bruna bookstores, don’t cancel the stamps. Weird by the way, every year for almost a million euro not cancelled stamps are being re-used costing the postal service lots of money…

[Eef_NL]

@Regndroppar After reading your sad message earlier, I was extra grateful to receive this special cancellation from the Moomin Museum this week:

[Regndroppar]

@Eef_NL Too bad that they have also machine cancelled it over the Moomin cancellation.

[muumihullu]

Really sad news. As a big Moomin fan I have been visiting the museum in Tampere three times and it was always nice to send postcards from there with the special cancellation. My friends and family always enjoyed that.