Cover - over the top?

[FairyFoot]

I was just browsing various correspondence blogs when I came across a blogger's sent post:



..  Hope Royal Mail had fun with this!

Edit - This photo is from the postalpaperphile's blog entry from January 2014. Most of her other posts are about incoming and outgoing letters - just look at all those stamps! Can you see why I go on about letters!!!? 

Edit - link and image both gone I can't recall full details of the envelope, but it had lots of different Machin stamps for postage. 

[guyana1230]

and to think they had to lick that lot as well, plus very carefully planned by the looks of it

[kannik]

Wow - that is BEAUTIFUL! What a panoply of gorgeous
colours! I hope the covered-up handwriting or typing
was just as gorgeous! I think that one`s a keeper
for me, too!  However, it doesn`t look to me like Royal
Mail had the heart to touch it!!

[FairyFoot]

It was something the blogger was about to mail...

[kacyds]

Wonder if it received one of those great pen cancellations......

[philatelius]

I think the clerks at my local post office would laugh me out of the building if I took something like that in and asked to have it handstamped, but the colors are great!

[Admin Bear]

Feb 18, 2014 12:55:42 GMT -5 philatelius said:

I think the clerks at my local post office would laugh me out of the building if I took something like that in and asked to have it handstamped, but the colors are great!

really? i do it all the time.. as long as you have less then 50 covers they can not say no...

[MikeC99]

That is a beautiful cover. I'm sure everyone would love to receive something like this.
Mike

[Bee]

Feb 18, 2014 13:19:48 GMT -5 MikeC99 said:

That is a beautiful cover. I'm sure everyone would love to receive something like this.
Mike

Ditto Mike agree its awesome!

[philatelius]

Feb 18, 2014 13:15:44 GMT -5 Admin Bear said:

really? i do it all the time.. as long as you have less then 50 covers they can not say no...

Well, to be fair, the local postal clerks just look at me kind of sideways like I must be trying to pull something over on them when I ask for an envelope to be postmarked by hand.

At the risk of taking this thread even further off track...while visiting a post office in another city a couple of years ago, a clerk and her supervisor insisted that it was against postal regulations for them to hand cancel an envelope, and that all mail must go through the automated canceling equipment. I said I was fine with it getting an additional cancel as long as it was hand canceled first, but they still resisted, and begrudgingly canceled my envelope only after I asked how they would process it if I applied additional postage and taped it to the side of a box.

On the other hand, during my visit to Yosemite National Park last year, one of the clerks at the main post office there handed me the postmark and let me service my covers myself.

I guess it can go either way, so I'm glad you have the cooperative sorts at your post office!

[Admin Bear]

ok i will resist taking it off topic further..

i have sent a few "Walls of stamps" lately and i do hope they got canceled.. i was unable to bring them inside but most of the locals know to grab them for me... besides the machine is likely to miss all of the older ones. ....

[kannik]

In Canada, whether they like to admit it or not,
most post offices have paper bands labeled
"Hand Cancel" or "Cancel by hand" or something
like that, which can be applied to one or more
envelopes for personal handling. We did it with
our Balt-Ex XXII FDCs, but unfortunately, I forgot
about it when I recently used a $5.00 and a $1.00
stamp on a Round Robin letter - luckily some
thoughtful postie just ran a ballpoint pen through
it once and didn`t deface it much!