postalnews blog

Another day, another news story about rescuing an endangered postmark: “Local union leaders and Rep. Don Manzullo are heading into a meeting with top postal officials Tuesday in Washington, determined that Rockford will keep its postmark.” The story in today’s Rockford, Illinois Register-Star is similar to recent stories from Olympia Washington, and Sioux City, Iowa.

In each case, as with all of the possible plant consolidations being discussed, there are real issues about productivity, jobs and service. But what is it about postmarks? Why is Tom Harkin worried about “the elimination of the 150 year old postmark of this proud and vibrant city”? Why is the state of Washington concerned about letters from the state capital being postmarked ‘Olympia/Tacoma’ instead of ‘Olympia’?

I’ve read all the stories, and I have to confess, it’s still a mystery to me. Consider a few facts. In the first place, virtually all governmental and commercial mail is paid for not by the use of postage stamps which need to be cancelled, but by meter stamps or permit imprints, which don’t. Meter and permit indicia usually bear the name of the post office they were entered at. So most mail from the state of Washington, and any other business in Olympia is still going to say Olympia in the indicia, regardless of where it gets processed.

Here’s another fact- the postal service operates about 38,000 post offices nationwide. Each of them can, and does, apply a local postmark to some mail. (Probably 99 percent of it on April 15, when nervous tax filers insist on actually seeing the postmark before they’ll leave). But the vast majority of stamped mail gets cancelled in one of just 200 or so processing centers across the country. Mail a letter from Sioux City and it gets postmarked “Sioux City”. Mail a letter from Ponca, or any of a hundred or more towns around Sioux City and it gets postmarked “Sioux City”. Why isn’t Tom Harkin worried about the lack of a Ponca postmark?

More to the point, who actually looks at a postmark? Virtually all of the first class mail I receive has a meter or permit imprint. The few pieces a month that I send out with a stamp affixed are usually bill payments, that get sliced open by a machine at the other end. They are not opened by spinster ladies with green eyeshades who exclaim “Why Emma look! This one’s from Sioux City! Imagine!” So if the sender never gets to see the 150 year old postmark, and the recipient is a machine, what are we really losing here?

One last point- the “150 year old Sioux City postmark” sounds like something carefully imprinted from the original hand engraved die. The reality is a little less romantic- most postmarks these days are sprayed from inkjet print heads. Hard to see how that qualifies them for the National Historic Register.

Lets get over the concern about postmarks, and start talking about the real issues!