HOW TO DO IT

1. HOW TO USE THIS SITE:

2. WHAT THEY ARE

3. GETTING THE INFORMATION

4. PREPARING YOUR PIECE

5. OUTER ADDRESS

6. IN THE MAIL STREAM

7. UNDER COVER

8. MONEY SAVING SUGGESTIONS

9. YOUR COVER LETTER

10. MULTIPLES

11. WHEN TO MAIL YOUR REQUEST

12. RETURNS:

13. HOW TO SAVE THE POSTMARKS:

14. ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

15. CACHETS

16. GENERAL INFORMATION

17. MACHINE CANCELS

18. USING TOPICAL STAMPS

19. RESOURCES RELATED TO POSTMARKS

20. CUSTOMIZED POSTAGE

1. HOW TO USE THIS SITE: There are three pages that give information about current postmarks that you can send away for. Each one looks like this, "STAMP COLLECTING PICTORIAL POSTMARKS JANUARY-1-2008."  According to the rules of the United States Postal Service, there is a 30 day grace period for sending away for these postmarks. This means that if your request is postmarked no later than 30 days after the date of use of postmark you are entitled to get it, but I do not advise waiting until the last minute especially for those living outside the USA. According to this rule, the postmarks listed on the page with the oldest date may be too old to get. Some postmasters will bend the rule if a request is received only a few days after the deadline. Some postmasters will not do so.
        Each entry has a picture followed by two parts in English text. The second text part is indented and is a description of the postmark, in English. Since I am providing a picture, it is my hope that it will not be important if you cannot read this part. The first text part contains the following: The first line is the date (or dates) of use of the postmark. The second line identifies the postmark (or gives it a name.) This line almost always ends with the word, "station." In this context, the word, "station," is used to identify the postmark and it does NOT refer to a post office. I sometimes refer to this line as, "the station name." When requesting a postmark do NOT put the date or the station name on the outside of the envelope. But it is important to include these two lines of your request INSIDE the envelope. The rest of this text part is the address.  You may use this address exactly as it appears in my entry but I suggest that below the first line of this address, you insert another line reading, "United States Postal Service."

2. WHAT THEY ARE: When the postal service is invited to set up a temporary station at an automobile show or at a street fair they prepare a rubber composition handstamp with which to apply postmarks to pieces mailed at their booth, These handstamps usually incorporate a little picture of some sort. The postal service also prepares these devices to commemorate some event: the 100th anniversary of the founding of a town or a famous event or some person’s birth. They are also used to promote the use of new stamps or to help advertise a national promotion of some kind (like prompting the awareness of breast cancer.) The commemorative cancellations made by these handstamps are called pictorial postmarks. They are used for a day or two and then destroyed. Actually any such cancel is called a pictorial postmark if it refers to the world outside of mail processing (whether it has a picture or not) and is produced by a handstamp device. The term that I prefer is commemorative cancellation, but that is not a generally accepted term. Cancellations generated by machines that refer to the outside world are called machine cancels by most collectors in the US.

3. GETTING THE INFORMATION: First you must find out where and when the cancellations will be used. The organ of the the United States Postal Service is called the Postal Bulletin and it carries announcements of these postmarks.  Also, most stamp newspapers have columns devoted to this.  But I believe that the best source is our own Postmark Advisory.   Perhaps one fifth of the cancels used by the postal service are not publicized in the Postal Service’s Postal Bulletin And, since the stamp newspapers depend, essentially, on the Postal Bulletin for their information, their coverage is similar. Although we are also dependant on the Postal Bulletin, we also have an outreach program that obtains information about hundreds of cancels in any one year not found in any other source. I believe that in 1996 we were able to obtain information on about 1,000 of such cancels.

4. PREPARING YOUR PIECE: After you know where and when to send in, prepare your piece for cancellation. This should normally be on a 6 1/2" envelope as that is what is preferred by most collectors. (In the printing and envelope trades, this is referred to as a number 6 3/4 envelope,) Many people use postal cards, in fact, in some countries, this is the normal way to collect. Envelopes of other sizes should be avoided (unless you have your own special reason) but whatever you use, make sure that there is current first class postage on each piece you submit. You may NOT use stamps imprinted with some special purpose like Bulk Mail, Carrier Pre-sort, Non-Profit, etc.
There is one thing you must be careful of. You must not use stamps that were issued after the date of the cancel. This is possible because of the 30-day grace period allowed by the USPS. If you use such stamps, the receiving post office will not accept it and will return your piece without canceling it and you will lose the chance to get the cancel. By the way, I would like to add that even if the receiving clerk should honor such a request, such a piece would not be acceptable in a stamp exhibit and most collectors would regard such a piece as defective.
If you can, try to avoid putting more than two stamps on your piece as that presents problems for the canceller. Also, when putting two stamps on: 1. Leave a slight space between them, say 1/16 to 1/8 inch. 2. If the stamps are of different sizes vertically, align them in such a way that the bottoms of the stamps are in one line. This makes it easier to cancel. 3. Do not affix your stamp or stamps in such a way as to be flush with the top edge or the right edge, but allow a slight space, say 1/16 to 1/8 inch. 4. If you want to put a cachet on your piece, make sure that you leave enough room for the cancel! The cancel is often 4" x 2"! (The maximum size permitted under postal regulations.) 5. You must use three envelopes.  The first  envelope is the envelope that you have prepared to get the desired postmark.  The second envelope (the return envelope) is the one the post office will use to return to you the first envelope.  It must have your address, it must have the proper postage on it and it must be larger than the first envelope.  It may be folded.  Also, you may use a third person's address on it if you want this to go to another person.  The third envelope (the outer envelope) is the one you will use to submit the other two envelopes.

5. OUTER ADDRESS: Use the address given to you by your source but, for best results, be sure it has a nine digit zip code. If the address provided has a nine digit zip code then use that, if not, add "-9998" to the five digit zip code. For best results: 1. Do NOT put the "station name" on the outside of the envelope. Using the "station name" on the outside sometimes causes your request to get misdelivered. To avoid misdelivery, I try to put as many indications as I can that the piece is going to someone within the postal service. Whenever appropriate I use "Postmaster" as the top line (I don’t use this, of course, if the address is directed to someone in the postal service with a different title.) I usually include the letters, "USPS," as a separate line just under the line for "Postmaster" ( I don’t use this if the address includes something like, "Philadelphia Main Post Office" as that would then be terribly redundant.) Many smaller post offices do not have a street address. For those places I use, P O Box 9998" in stead of a street address. Also, of course, I try to use the zip code four-digit add-on, which is usually "-9998"

6. IN THE MAIL STREAM: If you want your piece to be placed in the mail stream, you must put an address on your piece. If you want this to be returned to you, put your own address on it. If you wish it to be sent to a third party, then put that person’s name and address on it. If the piece is going to someone outside the United States make sure that you have enough postage on it to reach that country. Envelopes placed in the mail stream (that is, not under cover) should contain a letter or a filler of postcard thickness (otherwise it will be flimsy and get mistreated.)

7. UNDER COVER: If you want your piece to be returned under cover, then you must add a self-addressed envelope. For this purpose, you may use a number 9 envelope or a number 10 envelope folded in thirds.
The advantages to having your piece returned under cover are that: 1. It will not be overcancelled, as often happens otherwise. 2. It is less likely to get damaged in the mail stream. The disadvantage is that it costs more. 3. It need not be addressed. Being unaddressed is considered an advantage by many collectors in the US but not in some other countries.

8. MONEY SAVING SUGGESTIONS FOR THOSE LIVING INSIDE THE UNITED STATES: If you are willing to take a chance on overcancelling there is a bargain basement way of obtaining a cancel. Use a reply postal card.
Another idea. Along with your request, send an envelope sized plastic sleeve instead of a return envelope. Request that the piece getting the special cancel be placed within the sleeve with the open end folded to the back and sealed with scotch tape. Of course, your piece must then be addressed. (If you want unaddressed covers, then this will not help you.) This saves the cost of the return postage for the return envelope. This will not help those who reside outside the US because postal regulations prohibit this type of mailing piece in international mails.

9. YOUR COVER LETTER: It is advisable to include a cover letter telling the clerk exactly what you want giving the "station name" (or other cancellation identifier), the date of the cancel, the city, the state and the zip code AS THEY APPEAR IN THE CANCEL! (Sometimes the place name used in the address used to write in for the cancel is not the same as that used in the cancel itself!) If you are a US resident, it is a good idea to include your phone number. If you have an Email address, include that also. If you send away for many cancels it may be helpful to prepare a form letter and then have copies made.

10. MULTIPLES: You may send for more than one at any one time but if you want more than 50, then you are supposed to get permission in advance. To do this, request your permission from: Gary Stone, acting manager - stamp fulfillment center; 8300 NE Underground Dr; Pillar 210; Kansas City MO 64144-9998. You will be billed later for five cents per cancel. If you do not have time to get advance authorization, send payment along with your request, If you want 80 send $1.50 (80 that you want less 50 that are free = 30 for which you must pay. 30 times 5 cents each = $1.50.) If you send a check, make the check payable to the local postmaster, for example: Postmaster: Washington DC. If you send a check it must be drawn on a bank from WITHIN the US. Except for Canada or Japan, do NOT send postal money orders. You may NOT send postage stamps for this purpose.

11. WHEN TO MAIL YOUR REQUEST: Before the date (s) of use. Do not send for a cancel more than 7-10 days before the first day of use. (If you send in too early, you request may be misplaced or forgotten.) After the date (s) of use. According to postal regulations, you may obtain the desired cancel if your request is POSTMARKED up to 30 days after the date of use of that cancel. Please keep in mind these two things: It is not a good idea to wait until the last minute (this is particularly true for non-US residents) and if you do mail on the deadline (or even one or two days before) it is a good idea to take this particular piece to the post office and have the clerk apply a clear current date-stamp to the outer envelope.

12. RETURNS: If your piece comes back and it is not satisfactory for some reason (it was overcancelled or the cancel came out badly) you may return it to the issuing post office for replacement. But if you do this, then you should do so RIGHT AWAY! The cancel is kept for only a very limited period. If you did everything right and your request is not honored for some reason, you can either A. write again (immediately) or B. write to the Manager of Customer Service Support in the district in which the offending post office is located. Should the unfilled request be accompanied by a letter of explanation, save that letter. It sometimes happens that the postmaster is later willing to rectify his error but wishes some proof that you originally had sent in. Should a second letter to the postmaster not produce results within two weeks, write immediately to the Manager of Customer Service Support.

13. HOW TO SAVE THE POSTMARKS: When saving these cancellations, save them on the entire envelope or postcard. Do NOT cut off the corner for saving. Cutting off the corner is fairly common among those who collect standard cancellations (or postmarks) but it is not usually done among those who collect pictorial postmarks. .

14. ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS:
Event dates When the event dates are different from the cancel dates and they are known, they are indicated thus:
(E = 5-14)
Listing Entries are listed first by date and then by zip code.
Maps Most maps are outline maps.
N-P Non-pictorial.
No "station" The word "station" does not appear.
No zip (or city or state or date) Zip code does not appear (or city or state or date.)
SASE Self-addressed stamped envelope, number 10 size.
Slash (/) Whatever appears to the right of a slash (/) appears on the next line.
(60) The grace period is sixty days.
USPS United States Postal Service.
Use of this format [Picture of "Jesus."] means TWO things: [There is a picture of Jesus.] and [The word, "Jesus," appears.]

15. CACHETS: A cachet is a picture and/or wording printed on the left side of an envelope. It may be printed or applied by some other process. Normally, this cachet has some connection to the stamp (in the case of First Day Covers) or with the pictorial cancellation) in the case of pictorial postmarks. There is a little ambiguity here. Although a "cachet" is just the printed envelope without any stamp or cancel, in the case of pictorial postmarks, when cachets are offered up for sale, they are usually the complete cover - including cachet, stamp and cancel. You should be able to distinguish between these two usages by context. If you plan on ordering many cachets, try to get your name and address prepared on preprinted gummed address labels so you may send them to those places requesting them. This is an important courtesy and it prevents misaddressing. Some collectors prefer to collect their pictorial postmarks on these cacheted envelopes prepared by the sponsoring organization even though it may cost a dollar of two for each. Unfortunately, the information needed to order these is difficult to obtain. I will not be providing cachet information in this net sampler. It is provided in the complete version, on paper. In this version, we are sometimes able to provide cachet information not available elsewhere.

16. GENERAL INFORMATION: If you don’t get your request back within two weeks, write again. This quick follow-up is needed because many places destroy the device rather quickly. If this doesn’t help, try a USPS consumer service card - available in every post office lobby. The next paragraph is for non-US residents. Others please skip to the paragraph below it.
If you are a non-US resident, then I suggest that you forward a complaint about the US postal service through the postal service of your own country, Most postal services have some such mechanism. Ask your own post office for details. It is my own guess is that this would work better than the US consumer cards which do not work very well anyway. Much depends, of course, on how vigorously your own post office pursues this matter. It is more difficult for the United States Postal Service to ignore a government than an individual.
If this doesn’t help, try the manager of customer service support of the district in which cancel post office is located. If you are 100% in the right but you are told that the device was destroyed, ask that it be remade, after all, it wasn’t your fault. (Although you should NOT say so to your contact, I have found that this statement - about the destruction of a device - is often either an incorrect assumption or an outright lie designed to avoid having to do work in this area.) If you will be very active in this collecting area, I suggest the purchase of the zip code directory. Your post office will either have it for sale or be able to tell you how to obtain it. I find it very helpful. One "problem" that often occurs is that the clerk does not hit the stamp with the cancel. Collectors who request many cancels might take this statement, "Part of your cancel MUST COVER part of the stamp!" and either incorporating it into your form letter or have it made into a large rubber stamp which you can then apply in red ink at both the top and bottom of your cover letter.

17. MACHINE CANCELS: If you send for a machine cancel, do not include any other concern with your request. Your piece should be an envelope and not a post card (post cards are not processed well by machinery because they are too thin.) The envelope should contain a filler card of post card thickness. If you have no card, then a sheet of paper folded in thirds will be all right. The piece MUST be addressed. This is because once the piece enters the machinery to obtain the cancel, it cannot be recovered but goes into the mail stream automatically. Also, the flap of your envelope should be sealed or tucked inside the envelope. An open flap will jam the machinery. No matter how badly your request turns out, the USPS has no provision for its replacement. The only thing you can do is to send in another request. Actually, the USPS rules prohibit honoring requests for machine cancels so, if a post office does help you out in this way, it is a special courtesy. It is hopeless to send in a request to places that process huge quantities of mail (New York City, for example) because no one even knows which machine holds the particular message you want. If you complain, the officials will simply ignore your requests altogether! Note: you may not request a specific date for machine cancels. The dates of these machines are changed daily - automatically - so the official would have to set such a request aside and remember to put it through on a specific date. This is a VERY unreasonable request.

18. USING TOPICAL STAMPS RELATED TO THE CANCEL: Keep track of recent or forthcoming new issues keeping in mind the possibility of using a stamp related to the cancel that you wish to obtain. Keep track of the the dates though because if you send for a cancel with a stamp issued after the date of use of your cancel, that request will not be honored. (Despite the topical connection, the use of such a stamp destroys the integrity of the resultant cover and most collectors really would not want it.)
Sometimes, the date on which a new stamp was issued is the same as the date of use of a cancel that you wish to obtain. When this happens you must exercise some care. If the stamp is first released everywhere on the same date then there is no problem. But suppose the city using the cancel is different from the first day of issue city (or different from one of the first day of sale cities.) When that happens some postmasters will reject the request (as they are supposed to do) and some will honor the request. To be on the safe side, you might send in two requests, one with the desired stamp, and one with a "safe" stamp.
Explanatory note: For a couple of years now the USPS has been releasing new stamps for sale in more than one city. One city is designated as the First-Day-Of-Issue City and the others are designated as First-Day-Of-Sale Cities. In first day of issue cities the stamps are available as soon as the post office in that city is open (sometimes at midnight!) and there are usually some ceremonies to honor the event. In first day of sale cities, the stamp is usually released later in the day and there are no ceremonies. For my part, I regard such mental gymnastics as silly and insulting.
An interesting idea is to use a topically related stamp and add a stamp of smaller value to bring the amount up to the current rate.  You can do this for envelopes but for postcards you would have to obtain your own blank cards just for this purpose (or use a picture post card.)

19. RESOURCES RELATED TO POSTMARKS: On this site I have a page called, "LINKS." This tells where to find other sites on the internet that deal with postmarks in some way. If you know of any other resources dealing with postmarks whether of the USA in general, some particular state or aspect, or postmarks of some other county, please let me know and I will be glad to add it to this list.

The listings of postmarks shown on one page on this site are just a small sample of the approximately 150 to 200 postmarks used in any half-month period. The best way to get complete information is by a mail subscription to my weekly newsletter. This newsletter usually provides information on hundreds of postmarks every year that is not obtainable from any other source - including the US Postal Service itself!  This newsletter is in the same format as the listings on this web site. In 2003 the subscription rates are:  to US residents: Three months $13.00; Six months $23.00; One Year $42.00. The subscription rates to residents outside the US are: Three months $19.00; Six months $35.00; One year $65.00. Please pay in cash or by a check drawn on a bank from WITHIN the US. I am not now set up to accept payment by charge cards but I may do so in the future.  Except for Japan and Canada, I cannot accept postal money orders because they incur charges which I cannot absorb.  Most of this cost is in printing and postage. The address to write to is:

General Image, Inc
10 East Sumner Avenue
Rochelle Park NJ 07204
United States

If you edit a publication and would like to tell your readers about these cancellations please let me know, in English, and we can work something out, including a much longer lead time for your publication.
The second possible way is by a web subscription. This is not now available. The cost would be $20.00 per year and I would need 75 to 100 subscribers to cover the costs. If you are interested this please let me know by clicking on FEEDBACK and telling me, in English.

FEEDBACK REQUESTED: If you can suggest any improvements or additions to the above information, please let me know by pressing the first word in this section (it is underlined) and sending me a message. This applies to postmark resources and anything else.

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