I received a postcard from Australia with a seal labeled “documented” on it. I don’t know what the purpose of this seal is.
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Did you check with your post office and with the post office in the receiving country what their policies is on stamping mail?
Wow, that really puts a blight on that card 
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Ooooh…I want to know the story behind this as well! At first I was thinking this was something the sender did for some kind of mail art (…I like the idea of doing something similar now intentionally 
), but was already a maxi card, so yeah, for this one it doesn’t make sense.
I am not an expert on Australia postage, but maybe something to do with that (if there was no additional postage added to the back). Seems strange either way though. Quite intriguing!
At end of the day, I still think it only adds the beauty and magic of a postcard well traveled.
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Hi, you can try asking at https://stampboards.com/
It has many members from Australia who may be able to help.
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These cards have postage pre-paid, so there will be no shortage of postage.
I’ve sent hundreds of these cards and have never heard of this happening, so I don’t think it happened at the Australian end.
Very good suggestion, there are some very knowledgeable stamp people there.
@KlausChou I’m registered there (although I almost never post), so if you’d like me to post a question, I’m happy to.
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That would make me SO irritated! It’s a beautiful maxi card and stamp! I’m perfectly happy with normal post office marks and such, even a bit of “wear and tear,” but this one’s crazy! I hope someone can explain it.
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Hello, please help me post questions about this postcard on this website, thank you.
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Thanks @helent for following up on this mystery. 
Looking forward to learning the outcome of your inquiry at Stampboards.
Sadly, still no response on stampboards. They do seem to have some technical problems right now, so hopefully someone will have an answer at some point.
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Well, if it turns out to be a postal mark, it would definately be a very interesting postal history item.
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It doesn’t seem to be something that’s commonly done with this stamp (from my research). My thoughts are that perhaps whoever was meant to mark it could not find the proper stamp, and used some internal office stamp as a replacement. It’s the only logical explaination I can think of. Because ‘Documented’ is in English, perhaps this happened on the Australian side. It’s somewhat common (at least in the UK) to cancel stamps an ‘improper’ way if nothing else is available, so I would not be surprised.
Edit: By ‘stamp’ I mean the ink type for postal marks
I agree that the postmark was not applied in China but I don’t think its aim was to cancel the stamp as it is way too big of a postmark. Plus canceling it with a pen or marker would be much easier. Then again the human mind is a strange place…
@helent I got an idea. How about posting the card in this thread: https://stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=25147
It maybe has more chances to be noticed.
It is cancelled, though. You can see the first day cancellation in the bottom right corner.
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Like @helent, I’ve sent thousands of these pre-paid maxis and I agree that this likely didn’t happen at the Australian end — firstly, no additional postage is needed, but also you can see that it’s been through an automated sorting machine (the additional stamped letters running up the stamp) so it would be strange for it to also have been handled by a person and even stranger for it to have been cancelled for a third time. It definitely wouldn’t have been postmarked at an individual post office (which is where you would expect them to use whatever they can find — which, in my experience, is always pen or Sharpie).
I would be so gutted if I was either the sender or the receiver. 
Why would you do that to a beautiful card, especially a maxi card… I wonder what that means. Please let us know if you get a reply. I have never seen anything like it…! oh noㅠㅠㅠㅠ
Just an idea … have you ever asked Australian Post?
-jmh