Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
My father-in-law's family was sent a thank-you note from a friend - they both lived in Montreal, about 1/2 hour away from each other. A few weeks afterwards she asked what they thought of her comments, and they admitted they hadn't received the card. Another couple of weeks passed and the mailman showed up, card in hand and asking for the postage due to be paid. Clearly the proper postage was applied, and the stamp cancelled, but they grudgingly paid the mailman and sent him packing.
The next day they complained about it with my F-I-L as they were tossing the envelope in the garbage. He did a double take when he looked at it, and took it back home. He recently uncovered it in some old papers and gifted it to me along with the story.
His theory is that when sent from Montreal, the card somehow got stuck in a mailbag during processing, and in turn was sent to Germany mixed in with other mail (which would have been cancelled in Canada - which this was not - thereby arriving intact). In Germany, someone caught the misdirection in their P.O. where they cancelled it even though it didn't have proper German postage. Since there is no return address they must have opened it first, saw in the contents that it was an innocent misdirection rather than an attempt by a German scofflaw to avoid spending pfennigs, rather than pennies, and and sent it back across the pond chuckling about their dumbkopf Canadian colleagues.
You can see the cover has the proper postage for a card sent from one end of Montreal to the other in August - but the postmark shows it was mailed from Hamburg Germany in September. And on the back the cancellation is for arrival in Montreal in October.
The "Taxe Charges" and "T40" imprints are in purple as is the Montreal cancellation - given the similar color of the postage due stamps I assume this is shows handling by a special department in the P.O. It was also opened by the P.O.and taped closed as seen by the tape marks and discontinuous German cancellation, with a purple "X" intact (obviously marked after inspection by the P.O. presumably to show it was officially resealed).
There are also pencil markings by the postman, partially hidden by the PD stamps. Looks to me like "Call please" and pencil markings on the subsequently-applied PD stamps, presumably to show payment on delivery.
So Philatelic Sleuths, of what do you make this "Curious Matter of the Misplaced Montreal Merci"?
Cheers, Dave.
Login to Like
this post
The T40 was applied in Germany
Interesting that they used purple. Wonder if that's a fluke (that led me astray) or an international postal convention for tax/postage due.
Thanks for the feedback.
Login to Like
this post
Thanks to philb for this idea from his Java via ... cover thread. Here's another one for you to take a stab at...
My father-in-law's family was sent a thank-you note from a friend - they both lived in Montreal, about 1/2 hour away from each other. A few weeks afterwards she asked what they thought of her comments, and they admitted they hadn't received the card. Another couple of weeks passed and the mailman showed up, card in hand and asking for the postage due to be paid. Clearly the proper postage was applied, and the stamp cancelled, but they grudgingly paid the mailman and sent him packing.
The next day they complained about it with my F-I-L as they were tossing the envelope in the garbage. He did a double take when he looked at it, and took it back home. He recently uncovered it in some old papers and gifted it to me along with the story.
His theory is that when sent from Montreal, the card somehow got stuck in a mailbag during processing, and in turn was sent to Germany mixed in with other mail (which would have been cancelled in Canada - which this was not - thereby arriving intact). In Germany, someone caught the misdirection in their P.O. where they cancelled it even though it didn't have proper German postage. Since there is no return address they must have opened it first, saw in the contents that it was an innocent misdirection rather than an attempt by a German scofflaw to avoid spending pfennigs, rather than pennies, and and sent it back across the pond chuckling about their dumbkopf Canadian colleagues.
You can see the cover has the proper postage for a card sent from one end of Montreal to the other in August - but the postmark shows it was mailed from Hamburg Germany in September. And on the back the cancellation is for arrival in Montreal in October.
The "Taxe Charges" and "T40" imprints are in purple as is the Montreal cancellation - given the similar color of the postage due stamps I assume this is shows handling by a special department in the P.O. It was also opened by the P.O.and taped closed as seen by the tape marks and discontinuous German cancellation, with a purple "X" intact (obviously marked after inspection by the P.O. presumably to show it was officially resealed).
There are also pencil markings by the postman, partially hidden by the PD stamps. Looks to me like "Call please" and pencil markings on the subsequently-applied PD stamps, presumably to show payment on delivery.
So Philatelic Sleuths, of what do you make this "Curious Matter of the Misplaced Montreal Merci"?
Cheers, Dave.
Login to Like
this post
re: Mis-Directed Mail & Cancellation Oddities: Another "Tale From the Crypt"
The T40 was applied in Germany
Interesting that they used purple. Wonder if that's a fluke (that led me astray) or an international postal convention for tax/postage due.
Thanks for the feedback.
Login to Like
this post