The coolest mail.
26So I got this mail mailed to me the other day:
It is… well, as my title says, the coolest mail. The stamps range from 1939-2008. Roughly 70 years of postage on this thing. Wasn’t an acquaintance who knew I would appreciate such a fascinating parcel, just a random ebay seller.
Seems like a perfectly mediocre thing to be excited over.
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I know what apartment you live in!!
/giphy slowly stalks
@conandlibrarian 50/50 chance anyway
That is so amazing! My dad collects stamps.
That is so cool!
I love that someone in the post office had to do the math on that!
Wonder if one of the torn ones was that upside down airplane from the movie Charade?
@KDemo Nope, they’re not. I collect stamps, too.
Oops, you posted it.
@Barney @brhfl
Hah! I found one of the torn ones:
From 1959. Value would have been between $0.18 & $18.50
@Barney @brhfl
And this may be another torn one:
@KDemo Holy moly, I looked most of them up but thought those were a lost cause. Those both do indeed look to be right! So cool, thanks!!
@KDemo Good job!
@brhfl @Barney
There are actually three stamps I really like. Off the eBay!
@conandlibrarian Well, you have to tell us which ones…
@brhfl You are so nice, but I still owe you something from like three years ago!
Aside from the ‘high’ value, I was kind of surprised the moose, deer, and… other deer… on the lefthand side were from the early '80s. They just look so blah!
@brhfl - I was going to guess they might be the kind you buy in a roll, but they have perforations on too many sides.
@KDemo They just look so cheaply printed compared to the rest… must have been a weird transitional period…
@brhfl The '80s sucked (in every way possible).
@Barney I was born in that decade, so… yeah, I’ll go ahead and agree with that.
@brhfl I loved the 80’s!
@brhfl Hmm… Maybe the 80’s weren’t so bad after all.
Not nearly as cool as this, but once I had to mail some cd’s (remember those?) to a friend across the country. The postage vending machines used to give me one and two cent stamps before they installed the kind that take credit cards, so I had a collection of those low value stamps in my car. I wallpapered the entire padded mailer with stamps, minus one in the top left for the return address and two in the center where I wrote his address.
I sent it to his workplace, and he was out the day it arrived. He said the package had drawn a lot of attention by the time he got back.
@djslack This parcel actually contained a CD, I definitely remember them! And oddly enough it was a local band, but it came from many states away.
I went to buy some stamps from a machine last week, and it was out of the pre-printed sheets… so it had to print these ugly things on demand. I could buy 3, 4, or 5 stamps — no fewer, no more. Made me laugh.
@brhfl I had a stack of those once for the same reason. They’re not fully sticky at the end and I was worried that postal machines would rip them off and my bills would go unpaid.
Should this seller be selling his stamp collection on ebay rather than using it to mail his other packages?
Also, do you think when a postal worker encounters a package like this that they add up the value of the stamps and compare to proper postage or they just say “fuck it, looks good” and try to cancel them all? I love the idea of seeing a postal worker go crazy with the stamper trying to hit all those stamps all over. It was one of the reasons I enjoyed mailing that cd as much as I did.
@djslack I was wondering that myself, especially with the (at least) three largely-demolished stamps. I think I would be the “I ain’t got time for this shit” postal worker, personally…
@brhfl In my experience I think “ain’t got time for this shit” is quite possibly a required question to pass the civil service exam. You may be an excellent candidate for a career with the postal service!
So which is the 1939 stamp?
@KDemo Byrd Antarctic Expedition, 3 cents — starting from the upper right, it’s one down and one to the left. Very good shape (good enough to… mail stuff with!)
@brhfl - Awesome! I couldn’t tell what was going on with that one.
I collected stamps as a kid in the 70s and 80s. I recognize most of these. The Camp Fire Girls one that fell off is a favorite. I saw an Inverted Jenny in real life at the Smithsonian. It was a big deal.
@SSteve The postal museum is neat! I mean, there’s a weird taxidermied postal dog but for the most part… Just an oft-neglected chunk of Smithsonian.
@brhfl You are referring to Owney.
Here’s a picture of us!
@zachdecker I chaperoned a field trip to DC and it snowed and was in general hellish, so we skipped the main museums and went to the Postal Museum because it was close to the train station. Loved the pup.