Interesting Swedish postal cancel

I've had this pair of stamps in my collection for decades, labeled "ventilator" cancels, which I assumed without research was a form of "disinfected mail."

Today when I checked for more information, I discovered that these "ventilations" were not designed to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, but rather to prevent the reuse of the stamps.  Here is some relevant information from the Swedish Postal Museum:

"The "ventilator" cancel (ventilatorstämpel) featured a specialized postmark wheel with built-in, fan-like rotating blades. When the postal clerk pressed the device onto a letter, the wheel spun and physically cut or punctured small, geometric slits directly into the paper fibers of the stamp. If anyone tried to steam or peel the stamp off the envelope to reuse it, the stamp would tear apart along those slits.  Because the security incisions resembled the radial slats of an air vent or ventilation fan, philatelists nicknamed it the "ventilator" cancel. Similar mechanical safety trials from that era included the bikupestämpel ("beehive" cancel) and the sågtandsstämpel ("saw-tooth" cancel)."  

I have some beehive cancels I can post in the future.  Sawtooth ones are apparently exceedingly rare, presumably because they were used only for a short period of time and because anyone trying to remove the stamp to put it in a collection would have wound up with a severely damaged stamp.  The green 5o stamp on the right has a small triangular defect best seen when viewed with my digital microscope:

A history of disinfected mail

As soon as humans became aware that infectious diseases could be transmitted by fomites (inanimate objects), attention was directed to developing methods of disinfection. Postal and public health authorities had to deal with a wide variety of extremely dangerous infections (cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, leprosy, anthrax), and applied a surprising variety of techniques to letters and packages sent through the mails, beginning as early as the 15th century in Venice.

A very informative philatelic exhibit presents examples of how the U.S. has dealth with potentially dangerous items.  Shown at the top, for example, are two letters from locations where yellow fever was present; they have been punctured to allow fumigating agents to reach the inside of the envelope.  The bottom envelope in this image -

- had its corners clipped off so that formaldehyde gas could be introduced to kill smallpox.  Other letters and postcards were autoclaved or steam sterilized, which could be deleterious to the letters inside.

These precautions were not limited to the preantibiotic era.  In 2001 threats of anthrax attacks were made in the United States, and a variety of special precautions, including x-irradiation, had to be undertaken, beginning at this page of the exhibit and continuing for a dozen pages thereafter.  And these letters from Hawaii in 1900 show how holes were punched in the envelopes -

- so that sulfur fumes could be insufflated before they were sent from areas quarantined for bubonic plague.  Other examples are shown of disinfection of mail from the Hawaiian leper colony.

Philatelic exhibitions are conventionally mounted on a series of glass-fronted frames, with up to 16 letter-size pages in one frame, and in this case spread onto six frames.   This award-winning exhibit was created by William A. Sandrik of Arlington, Virginia.  The entire exhibit may be viewed at Exponet (frame 1, frame 2, frame 3, frame 4, frame 5, frame 6).

And those interested in philately (stamp and postal history collecting) should browse the Exponet site beginning at this index page.  Over 600 exhibits are accessible, on a huge variety of topics, in a wide variety of languages.

Reposted from 2011 because of its timely subject matter.   Today a New York Times article addresses the question of transmission of coronavirus by mail:

A representative for the U.S. Postal Service was unwilling to discuss current sanitization protocols. But the agency’s website reports that the only mail items receiving treatment are letters and parcels sent to ZIP codes beginning in 202, 203, 204 and 205, which serve federal government agencies in Washington, D.C. In a process that began shortly after the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Postal Service sends mail destined for those ZIP codes to New Jersey, where they are put on a conveyor belt and passed under a high-energy beam of ionizing radiation that kills bacteria and viruses. The letters and packages are then “aired out” for a while, before being forwarded to their destinations. The paper is left slightly faded and somewhat crispy, but sterile.

Should mail irradiation be extended beyond these exclusive ZIP codes, to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus? On CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning, Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, warned that SARS-CoV-2 could potentially be transmitted by contaminated objects. “This is a sticky virus,” he said. The structure of the coronavirus’s protective envelope helps it bond tightly to certain surfaces: skin in particular, as well as fabric and wood, but also plastic and steel...

David Partenheimer, a spokesman for the Postal Service, noted that the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, along with the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, has “indicated that there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is being spread through the mail.”..

Then again, contact transmission is notoriously difficult to study and document...

Reposted from 2020 to accompany a newer and related post. 

Postal history of the Telemark coast of Norway

The video is a full-length recording of an hour-long presentation at the Boston 2026 World Exposition of Philately.  The Telemark postal district is situated west of Oslo, and the coast extends from Skien on the north to Kragero on the southwest.  This presentation discusses postal history of this region up through the end of the 19th century.  The information will be of most interest to serious philatelists or to others interested in Scandinavian history.

One item will also be of interest to anyone who has a relative or friend whose last name is Odegaard.  When the Black Plague arrived in Norway in 1349, approximately 2/3 of the population died.  Some of those who survived moved to the abandoned farms.  "Odegaard" is Norwegian for "abandoned farm."  You learn something every day.

How the tariffs have affected me

There has been a boatload of analysis, commentary, criticism, and speculation about the effects the new tariffs may or may not be having on the U.S. economy.  I thought I'd throw some actual data into the mix.

One of my retirement activities has been orchestrating the disposal of all the "stuff" I've accumulated during the past 7 decades.   This is what might reasonably be termed a "first world problem."

Books went years ago; Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr collections to eBay, various fiction, history, and science books to the library.  Clothes to Goodwill.  Rocks, minerals, crystals etc to neighborhood children.  High school and collegiate memorabilia to classmates.  Now I'm working on collectibles - stamps, comic books, baseball cards etc.  For these latter items, eBay is an excellent venue.

This summer I noticed a significant change in how the eBay sales were processing, and I began to track numbers.  For the first 125 lots I sold this year, these were the shipping destinations:

United States          72

United Kingdom    26

Australia/NZ          10

Canada                     8

Others                      9 (Estonia, Czech Repub, Sweden, Norway, Sri Lanka, Singapore)

The next 125 exhibited a markedly different pattern:

United States        114

United Kingdom      5

Canada                     2

Others                      4

At the end of July, sales to foreign buyers evaporated.  Instead of 40% going abroad, quite suddenly it was fewer than 10%.  The reason became apparent when I looked at the invoices eBay was sending to the foreign buyers (example embedded at top).  On a $35 purchase, but winning bidder was asked for $27 in shipping, tariffs, and taxes.  The VAT had always been there [this lot going to the UK], but in previous years and at the start of this year I was able to ship small lots of stamps in regular mailing envelopes for USD $1.75 and my sales (typically less than $40) were not subject to tariffs.   It was on July 30 of this year that the Trump-imposed tariffs were applied to "de minimus" items of modest monetary value.  And I presume what the buyers of my items are seeing are reciprocal tariffs imposed by their home countries?

I have corresponded with some of my (former) buyers in Scotland and elsewhere.  They are still interested in my material, but when they have to factor in the new "shipping" costs, my lots become unattractive.

I'm not suffering financially because for me this is discretionary hobby activity and basically a housecleaning operation, not a business.  But I will bet you there are lots of small businesses (especially home businesses and side hustles) in the U.S. who are seeing a similar phenomenon be more impactful on their bottom line.   I totally dismiss the claims of politicians that the U.S. economy is strong.  The stock market does continue to approach new all-time highs, but that's because of an irrational enthusiasm regarding the "magnificent severn" stocks (AAPL, GOOGL, TSLA, NVDA, META, MSFT, AMZN).   I will bet you a dollar to a dime that the weakness will show up not in the Dow or NASDAQ, but in the broad-based Russel 2000 index.

And this recent quote I find particularly baffling:

"The Federal Reserve is facing a difficult situation as the US economy shows strong growth and high productivity, yet hiring has significantly slowed... This divergence complicates decisions on whether to cool or boost the economy [via interest rates], with concerns about a potential jobless expansion despite investments in AI..."

Rising unemployment DESPITE AI?  Correct me if I'm wrong (please.  I'm no expert on such matters), but my understanding was that one of the major powers of AI was to improve efficiency by having the bots do the work formerly done by humans.  I would think increased unemployment would be expected, not a surprise.

Those who understand these sorts of things, please chime in with comments.  

Related:  A recent Bloomberg article is entitled Boomers Are Passing Down Fortunes — And Way, Way Too Much Stuff.  "As the $90 trillion Great Wealth Transfer begins, millennials and Gen X aren’t just inheriting money. They’re being buried under an avalanche of baseball cards, fine china and collections of all sorts..."  True that.

Addendum:  Another example.  Buyer paid $22.77 "shipping" (for a $37 purchase) into the eBay system to have one stamp mailed overseas, which I could do for $1.75 postage.  Probably some local taxes/fees from their local govt included.

This post has been cancelled

So to speak.  I originally posted the image above as a contest to guess what it is:

It's certainly a representation of a skull.  For what purpose?  A functional item, or an objet d'art?  If it's art, of what era/style?  Jewelry - from when?  Toy/game - which one?  European, American, Asian, Incan?  Your grade will be based 1/3 on era (century), 1/3 on geography (continent) and 1/3 on use/purpose.

Answer tomorrow, with source credits.

But it turned out to be too easy.  Ponder the photo for a moment to see what you would have guessed, then look beneath the fold for the answer...

North Korean postage stamps created as instruments of propaganda

A scholarly lecture on postal fakes, forgeries, and counterfeits

PostNord will stop delivering letters in Denmark

As reported by the American Philatelic Society:

"The state postal service of Denmark, PostNord, has announced it will cease handling letters in Denmark at the end of 2025 "to focus on becoming the Danes’ favorite parcel delivery service." The cut in service is tied to a reported 90% decline in letter volumes since 2000.

Postnord has also announced that any postage stamps bought in 2024 or after could be refunded for a limited time in 2026, presumably marking the end of the country's stamp issues.

Denmark's Transport Minister, Thomas Danielsen, told Danes concerned about the future of their mail that "a free market" would ensure they could still send letters, just not through a national postal service...

An increase in use of digitial communication is largely cited as the reason for the decline in number of letters sent in the country. However, Denmark's Postal Act of 2024 also allowed private firms to enter the postal arena, and inland letters are no longer exempt from value-added tax, or VAT, meaning that a letter cost Danes 29 krone ($4.20) to send...

Exceptions were previously made for populations in remote areas and with vision impairment, but PostNord's statement does not suggest that will be the case again. The statement also does not directly say whether letters can be sent from other countries to Denmark; however, at this time we can only infer that international letters will not be accepted or distributed..."

Postal codes explained.

Would it be possible to sort and deliver mail using what3words?  Humans couldn't do it, but perhaps computers could.  Via Miss Cellania.

Interesting album page from a stamp collection

Screencap from a lot I saw posted on eBay.   Stamp collectors should lean back so as not to drool on their keyboard.

Before you complain about the postal service...

... study this table.  Details from NPR:

The office compared the U.S. to 30 other nations that were selected by country size and postal service revenue, as well as the ability to source reliable data. The list includes much of the European Union, along with countries such as Canada, Japan, Brazil and Russia.

In raw numbers, only four countries had cheaper stamps than the U.S. And while many postal services have raised prices in recent years, the U.S. increases were moderate compared to most nations in the sample.

"The price of a [USPS] stamp increased by 26 percent from June 2018 to June 2023 ($0.50 to $0.63)," the inspector general report states, "which is less than half of the average increase for our sample size (55 percent) during that period."

When the OIG adjusted its analysis for purchasing power parity — a currency conversion rate used to compare the relative affordability of goods in different countries — the U.S. had the lowest stamp price of the 31 postal services.

Mailmen told to give priority to Amazon packages

Amazon delivers to your door in urban areas, but in rural areas Amazon relies on the U.S. Postal Service for that "last mile" of delivery.  As reported by the StarTribune:

Since early November, Bemidji has been bombarded by a sudden onslaught of Amazon packages - and local postal workers say they have been ordered to deliver those packages first.

The result has been chaos at the Bemidji post office. Mail is getting backed up, sometimes for days, leaving local residents waiting for checks, credit card statements, health insurance documents and tax rebates. Routes meant to take eight or nine hours are stretching to 10 or 12. At least five carriers have quit, and the post office has banned scheduled sick days for the rest of the year, carriers say... Carriers and local officials say mail service has been disrupted in rural communities from Portland, Maine, to Washington state's San Juan Islands...

In Bemidji, postal workers said they had been told that Amazon was coming to town for years. It finally happened one morning in early November, when the post office was flooded with thousands of Amazon boxes and carriers said they were told they all had to be delivered by the end of the day.

Carriers who previously had delivered dozens of small parcels a day plus paper mail suddenly had to deliver between 300 and 500 boxes that they said had previously been handled by UPS...

For all the extra work, mail carriers weren't making much more money. Rural mail carriers are paid only for the amount of time the post office estimates it will take them to finish their jobs. And in Bemidji, the routes had been reevaluated in October, just before Amazon changed everything.

There are a lot of people in the business world who want the USPS to fail and have it restructured as a private business, because there is a lot of potential profit to be derived from it.

Swastikas on Canadian postage stamps

The symbol is used as an ornament in the corners of the Newfoundland stamp; on the two Air Post semi-officials (for use on private airlines), the symbol is part of the background color:

Explanation from the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada:

Derived from Sanskrit, the ancient and sacred language of Hindus in India, svastika means "conducive to well-being" and for thousands of years has been used as a good luck symbol in many cultures all over the world.  Many Indian nations in South, Central, and North America favoured this symbol, and several early 20th century companies featured it on their products. In Canada, some hockey teams, the symbol emblazoned on their jerseys, were called "The Swastikas." In northern Ontario, the residents of the small community of Swastika resisted pressure to change the name of their town during the Second World War, contrary to what took place in 1916 when the residents of Berlin, Ontario voted to change the name of their city to Kitchener.

It should not be surprising, therefore, that this symbol has appeared on a few Canadian postage stamps. The stamps in question are known as Air Post Semi-official issues. In the period 1924 - 1932 several private commercial airlines produced stamps to prepay the mail that they carried to areas that were inaccessible by other means. These companies operated under the strict regulations of the Post Office, and their stamps had to be affixed to the back of covers.

All of these stamps are relatively uncommon nowadays, cataloguing several hundred dollars each.

See also the adjacent post All swastikas are not created equal.

A very unusual postage stamp design

It depicts concrete.  Furthermore, "to give the concrete wall depicted in the design a tactile dimension, cement pigments were added to the ultra-matte finish."  This stamp is part of a series that began with a depiction of canvas:

More information at Swiss Post, via Kottke.

Counterfeit forever stamps are becoming abundant - updated

The embedded image is a scan of some of the 29c stamps I bought from a friend at our local stamp club this weekend.  I use a pair of the stamps (from the 1990s) to mail a standard first class letter.  I buy the stamps from my friend at 70% face, so basically I spend 40c to mail a letter.   I wrote about the mechanisms and economics of discount postage back in 2014.

Recently, as a result of advances in printing technology, the situation has taken a more sinister turn, with counterfeit forever stamps flooding the marketplace.  This image from Linn's Stamp News in the fall of 2021 shows a counterfeit forever stamp (on the left) next to a valid one:

The only difference visible to the human eye is a subtle difference in the sharpness of the printed letters.

In the past couple of decades, the most frequently encountered counterfeit stamp was the Flag stamp. Sellers, typically through online outlets, would sell bulk quantities of these stamps at a significant discount from face value... But in July [2021], the first counterfeit of a recent commemorative stamp surfaced. Some security features were even faked, but not the one item that triggers cancellation machines at processing centers... Based on inquiries I have received, the unsuspecting buyers are often offices looking for a deal on postage. Many counterfeit stamps I have found are on mail sent by coin dealers, many who use discount postage when sending their mail.

And another article, just this past month, notes that counterfeiters are now able to duplicate foil texture and other special features.

As of the publishing of this article, Linn’s has counted approximately 40 new counterfeit issues (180 stamp designs)... When compared to the authentic stamps, the counterfeits appear shinier. This is likely because of the lack of a taggant coating that sometimes mutes a stamp design...The other new twist is the use of a special glossy coating that provides texture to the counterfeit stamps. Examples of these have been reported for two issues: the eight 2017 Sports Balls forever stamps (Scott 5203-5210) and the 10 2021 Star Wars Droids forever stamps (5573-5582).  The gloss on both counterfeits seems thicker than that on the authentic stamps. Also, the offset printing of the counterfeits has a grainier appearance.

Most of these counterfeits are being offered in bulk sales to owners of small businesses, or involve high-denomination stamps.  Be wary of someone offering to sell recent stamps at significant discounts to the face value. 

Reposted from March 2022 to add two images.  The first shows examples of counterfeit Forever stamps alongside valid ones -

The image is a screencap from an hour-long American Philatelic Society video presentation on the ongoing epidemic of counterfeit stamps.  Please see the video for details about the detection of these items.

The second screencap is a take-home message advising Americans to beware of offers of deeply-discounted stamps on social media.  While it is unlikely that any naive person would be prosecuted for mail fraud after inadvertently using counterfeit stamps for personal mail, it is important to understand that the money used to purchase those counterfeits is going into the pockets of bad people in China and perhaps Russia. 

New Ukrainian postage stamp

Approved but not yet printed.  Backstory at NPR.

Interesting finding from the world of deltiology

You can view this man's other remarkable collections at his Flickr site.  Via Neatorama.

Do we really need daily mail delivery?

By now everyone is aware of the ongoing and increasing problems of the United States Postal Service.

There has been a longstanding interest by various members of Congress and business world to privatize the USPS - allegedly to modernize and improve its service, but in real life because the USPS is a monopoly with enormous profit potential.

“These changes are happening because there’s a White House agenda to privatize and sell off the public Postal Service,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. “But there’s too much approval for the organization right now. They want to separate the service from the people and then degrade it to the point where people aren’t going to like it anymore.”

This started back in the Bush administration:

"But the agency has been rapidly losing money since a 2006 law, passed with the support of the George W. Bush administration, required USPS to pre-fund employee retiree health benefits for 75 years in the future. That means the Postal Service must pay for the future health care of employees who have not even been born yet. The burden accounted for an estimated 80% to 90% of the agency’s losses before the pandemic." 

Imagine any other business being told to pre-fund health benefits for the next 75 years.

Then this past year the prospect arose that disruption or slowing of the mail service might provide grounds for delegitimizing the results of mail-in ballots in the November election.  Some post offices were physically removing mail-sorting machines.  The justification (which may well be valid) was that the mix of mail has shifted massively away from letters to packages, and different machines are required for that purpose.

But for this post I'm going to set aside politics and just ask whether daily mail delivery is necessary in this modern era.  What prompted me to do this was some interesting items I noticed in the philatelic news:

"News from vanishing postal services are familiar everywhere in these days... In Finland the Post has already dropped Tuesday, and is now planning a three-times per week delivery system.  The iconic main Post office at the Helsinki city center was closed this summer, and there are not many post offices left in the city."

"Norway Post will provide every other day delivery of mail due to the decline in mail volume... Recipients will get their mail on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday one week, and Tuesday and Thursday the following week.  Those who have a post office box will receive normal daily delivery each weekday... Packages will be delivered every day or every other day depending on where in Norway the household is... Newspapers will be delivered every other day, or daily if the addressee has a post office box."

Those reports were in the March 2020 issue of The Posthorn - Journal of Scandinavian Philately, a publication of the Scandinavian Collector's Club.

TYWKIWDBI has an international readership, so I'd like to hear some feedback from non-U.S. readers to help me sort out in my mind how much of the U.S. situation is political vs. pragmatic.

Cancellations on Denmark's first postage stamps

This post will likely be of interest only to stamp collectors, but before discarding some old philatelic auction catalogues, I wanted to preserve a couple items for future reference.  

Denmark's first postage stamps were issued in 1851 - a blue 2 Rigsbank skilling issue for local delivery in Copenhagen, and the more commonly encountered 4 Rigsbank skilling ("Fire R.B.S.") issues shown here.  

Cancellations are used by postal authorities as a form of revenue protection (to prevent reuse of the stamps), and to a lesser extent for administrative purposes to document where letters originated and how they were transported.  The first issues in Denmark were cancelled with four-ring "mute" cancels (with a dot in the center); clerks were instructed to center these on the stamp and did so with varying degrees of efficiency.  

Shown in the top image is a philatelic rarity (prices shown in all the images are auction opening bids, expressed in IIRC Swedish or Danish kronor).  The item shown is an intact cover, cancelled on the first day the stamp was issued (April 1, 1851).  As the catalog entry notes, the cancel and the postmark are in blue ink, which was used in Copenhagen during that first week.

Full covers are rare because early collectors were interested only in the stamps, which were soaked or steamed off envelopes and mounted in albums.  The second image shows some individual FIRE R.B.S. stamps from that auction.  These have been "plated" by specialists, so they are identified by the plate from which the stamp was printed and even the position of the stamp on the plate.  Note that the third example is offered at a higher opening bid because of the blue cancel, which marks it as having been mailed during that first week of issue.

Another group of cancels seen especially during the first year were "manuscript" cancels, where the obliteration was performed by the postmaster by hand using an ink pen (or, as in the first example ink and chalk).   I believe these were more commonly done is smaller rural post offices, and were officially frowned upon (and eventually banned), so they also carry a premium in the modern marketplace.

The "mute" cancels were followed in October of 1852 by "numeral" cancels, still with obliterating rings, but now with numbers that corresponded to specific post offices or postal facilities.  Reference books provide rarity values for each of the numbers (those from small villages being especially uncommon, and sought by collectors).  Even rarer than the small town ones are the two shown above: the "183" used only when the king was in residence at his castle, and the "230" used briefly before a German invasion (these examples on 4-skilling stamps with wavy spandrels issued in 1863).

And one final uncommon item.   A few Fire R.B.S. stamps received "rebellion" cancels ("oprørsstempel" - think "uproar") from the Schleswig-Holstein rebellion of 1848-51.  The "first Schleswig war" ended about the time that adhesive postal stamps were introduced, but I think what happened was that some of the cancellers were retained and used by Danish postoffices after the conflict ended.  The opening bid shows how uncommon good examples are.

A segregated saddlebag for mail delivery

As reported by the Smithsonian National Postal Museum:

This saddlebag was used by a rural letter carrier at the turn of the last century in Virginia. While the outside of the saddlebag is innocuous enough, flipping open the mailbags on each side reveal a disturbing reality. One of the bags is marked by hand, “White,” the other “Colored.”

The saddlebag was used by a rural carrier operating out of the Palmyra post office in Fluvanna County, Virginia, most probably by Frank W. Shepherd (1868-1931)... Shepherd and Howard began working their routes on October 22, 1896 at an annual salary of $200 each. Each man’s route covered about 15 miles, with a total of 350 patrons on both routes.

Shepherd worked as a rural carrier on the route until his retirement in 1921. According to the “Annual Report of the Postmaster General,” the Palmyra rural routes were difficult to traverse. “The roads are scarce and bad. In covering their routes the carriers have to take their horses through fields and over farms.” Then, as now, rural carriers were responsible for supplying their own transportation and equipment. Shepherd either already owned this saddlebag or purchased it for carrying mail on his route. Why Shepherd segregated the mailbags is unknown. He may have done it because of personal prejudices, or by the demands of white patrons who did not want their mail to be “mixed” with letters addressed to their African American neighbors.