Category:
Postal Services

Beforehand Postcards

The concept of Beforehand Postcards was that, if you were going on vacation to Europe, you could buy your postcards from them beforehand. Then you could address the cards, and maybe even write them, before you left. Once you arrived in Europe, all you would have to do was mail them.

The business lasted a little over ten years, from the early 1970s to the mid 1980s.

Philadelphia Inquirer - June 17, 1973

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jun 29, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Tourists and Tourism, 1970s, Postal Services

The Zip Code Boardgame

Trains children for future careers in snailmail.

Entry at Board Game Geek is here.



Posted By: Paul - Sat Aug 19, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: Games, 1960s, Postal Services

Zip Code Music

Appearing in a post office film didn't seem to do much for the musical career of the Swingin' Six.

Indianapolis Star - Nov 4, 1966





via Postal Museum (Smithsonian)

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 27, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Music, 1960s, Postal Services

The Mailomat

Very handy for Xmas rush!

Article source: Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California)10 Dec 1939, Sun Page 59

Another good article here, with more pics.






Posted By: Paul - Fri Dec 24, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Inventions, Technology, 1930s, 1940s, Postal Services

Wife Swapping By Mail

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jul 22, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Husbands, Wives, 1960s, Sex, Postal Services

Stamp-Licking Animals

Martin Wainwright tells the following story in The "Guardian" Book of April Fool's Day:

[The journalist James] Bone described on one occasion how a desperate contributor of 'pars', small fillers for the popular press, went to send a letter from a post office and noticed that the pet cat on the counter was sitting with its tongue out. On a whim, he gave it his stamp to lick which it did. The next day a very short story appeared under the headline: Post Office novelty — Stamp-licking cat of Charing Cross'.

Like the best April Fool's jokes, this was to girdle the Earth. Not only was the post office besieged by punters wanting to send catlick mail (until the cat was driven demented and fled after two days) but the story spread and resurfaced for years. Animal protection societies weighed in, MPs spoke and the innocuous prank took off. Bone's friend was send clippings from across the country and, as the years went by, from Australia, Shanghai and the United States.

This suggests that stamp-licking animals were a journalistic invention. However, there do seem to have been some real-life examples of the phenomenon.

Longview Daily News - Dec 13, 1974



The Bloomington Pantagraph - Mar 11, 1951



"Ashley practiced stamp-licking until he had the task down purrfectly, then offered to kick off the Organization for Responsible Care of Animals' public appeal... In return for his generosity, each donor will receive a thank-you note enclosed in an Ashley-licked envelope with stamp attached."
Lancaster Sunday News - Oct 6, 1985

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jun 17, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Cats, Dogs, Postal Services, Stamps

Mail-Delivering Cats

1879: Reports reached America of experiments conducted in the city of Liege, Belgium to determine if cats could be used to deliver mail. Three dozen cats were said to have been placed in bags and then taken several miles out of the city. They were then released, after a message had been tied to each one. The cats reportedly made it back to their homes in Liege before the humans did.

Plans were said to be in the works "to establish a regular system of cat communication between Liege and the neighboring villages".

Lancaster Intelligencer Journal - Mar 26, 1879



The Chicago Inter Ocean - Oct 28, 1879

Posted By: Alex - Fri Apr 30, 2021 - Comments (3)
Category: Cats, Nineteenth Century, Postal Services

Owney, the Taxidermy Post Office Dog







Mail clerks raised money for preserving their mascot and he was taken to the Post Office Department's headquarters in Washington, DC, where he was on placed on display for the public. In 1904 the Department added Owney to their display at the St. Louis, Missouri, World’s Fair. In 1911, the department transferred Owney to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1926, the Institution allowed Owney to travel to the Post Office Department’s exhibit at the Sesquicentennial exhibit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From 1964-1992, he was displayed at the Smithsonian museum now known as the National Museum of American History and in 1993 he moved to the new National Postal Museum, where he remains on display next to a fabricated Railway Post Office train car.


Source.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 28, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Travel, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails, Dogs, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Postal Services

Grand Canyon, Colorado

May 1999: the U.S. Postal Service had printed 100 million copies of a stamp showing the Grand Canyon before anyone noticed that the stamp had "Grand Canyon, Colorado" printed in the corner. Luckily, the stamps hadn't been released to the public yet, but they all had to be destroyed and replaced with a new stamp which correctly placed the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

According to the site canyonology.com, the problems with the stamp didn't end there. It was discovered that the image of the canyon had been flipped left to right, but the postal service decided this wasn't enough of an error to warrant reprinting the stamp.

Salem Statesman Journal - May 18, 1999

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 17, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: 1990s, Postal Services, Stamps

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