They destroyed my stamps

Such a beautiful stamp :slightly_smiling_face:

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oh yes, now I got it. Yes, you’re right, but the card was cancelled as usual in Lithuania, and then there is a sticker from Germany.

You would think they would have been nice enough to put the postcard in a clear envelope then put the sticker in the top right hand corner?

Something like this that Brunei did with a postcard sent from New Zealand
OK I known it, was sent by a private mail courier, same principle could apply.

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Today received from the UK.
The beautiful stamps are ruined by the bold stripe of a marker . :rage:

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I actually kind of like the scribbles on stamps… They are unique cancellations for sure! :sweat_smile:

Are the stickers removable?

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So I don’t think anyone precisely addressed this question, so I’m gonna ask it.

Who does the pen cancelling for international mail? The sending country or the receiving country?

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My understanding is it’s the sending country as revenue loss prevention (to prevent stamp reuse). The receiving country shouldn’t care.

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I agree. Most of the pen cancellations I get come from UK, some from Canada and USA. What comes to Finnish mail, Finnish Posti acknowledges that some of the stamps miss cancellation (they estimated 10%, but I think the number could be higher), but don’t see that as a big problem. In an interview from 2017 they said it is due two things: letters/cards sticking together (practically all mail is machine-cancelled, hand-cancelled is always an exception according to them) and to stay within time limits they sometimes have to skip the cancellations. (They were referring to domestic priority mail). They were looking into other solutions than visible cancellation, like bar codes on stamps. These days one can add a code stamp on domestic mail (in addition to normal postage), if one hopes for more speedy delivery. So no, I can’t see Finnish postal workers going through incoming mail with a pen.

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Regarding my mail, I guess the country where the mail was sent. My other mail from Spain and Belgium, received at the same day, was normal . No stripes made by “hand” from marking pens etc. .

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Super curious if it’s the same across postal systems. And I asked because apparently mine has been showing up in the UK with no postmarks at all (now these were letters) and it confirmed for me what I’d been told that my mail isn’t processed locally in Ottawa, but shipped to a mega processing facility in Montreal.

And I’ve read varying accounts on the Forum, but no one was too specific about who does the hand cancelling. Thanks for the info!

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I rememer having read that everyone involved in the mailing process is entitled to cancel uncancelled stamps whenever they notice them. These people are advised to use whatever they have at hand to do so: The side part of a normal cancellation stamp, a pen or a special “nachträglich entwertet” stamp.
Speaking from my own experience I can tell that in Germany they also cancel foreign mail.

Finnish stamps with a German “nachträglich entwertet” stamp:

Dutch stamps with a German “Briefzentrum” stamp:

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Thanks Hanna, that would make the most sense to me, but I’m fascinated to hear what the actual practice is in different countries.

In principle, all postage must be cancelled. If this is not done in the dispatching mail sorting centre or post office and the letter ‘slips through’, there is a stamp - ‘nachträglich entwertet’ in the receiving mail sorting centre or post office. If the missing cancellation is not noticed there either, the postman has the task of cancelling it. This can be done with a specially designed stamp or, if necessary, simply with a ballpoint pen. This is how it is done in Germany.

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I think that’s the theory everywhere but the practice particularly with automation & sorting machines seems different in some places or there are big loop holes in the process I think.

Sorting machines speed things up so when in the process does hand cancellation happen for outbound mail?

Maybe @shugal can shed some light on this?

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I finally had time to watch this video - thanks for posting!

One thing he says that doesn’t work here so well is asking for the card to be hand-cancelled. In our town the stamp quite literally wore out years ago and wasn’t replaced, so hand-cancellation isn’t an option. In the next town over, you can have it hand cancelled, but it still gets sent to the sorting center, where it will be cancelled again with the machine, like it or not. I have tested this by sending things to myself several times.

Like @_Hawkwind_ I have received international mail a couple of times that somehow also got canceled at a German sorting center, but until now I haven’t received any pen-canceled-in-Germany mail. Maybe our postal carriers are a bit more laid-back!

Grumpy with my postal service today :grin: such nice stamps, already postmarked & in Canada they sharpie cancelled over it :sob:

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Two in one day! Bad luck!

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I also got a thick black line over the stamps, and these are really cool ones. Another card from today get no cancellaton at all.

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I wonder if someone at Royal Mail is reading this tread, alot of my incoming post that has out of position stamps are now receiving worn hand-cancels at the mail centres, but still some of the bulky parcels are getting the marker pen cancels.

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