As some of you know, I remove stamps from paper, cardboard, cellophane, packing tape, and Scotch Tape for one of the larger stamp companies. I have just received a new batch. All of these stamps have gone through the mail. It amazes me, once again, that fully 50% of these stamps have never been canceled - maybe as much as 70%.
When I was still collecting, I used to receive a lot of mailings from other stamp collectors or dealers. They usually used postage stamps when sending off their orders. I would say that your 50-70% estimate for non-canceled stamps on received mail is pretty accurate.
I guess that the Post Office is no longer worried about a lot of stamps that weren't canceled reentering the mail stream by frugal customers. They have so few customers left that use stamps that it probably isn't an issue. And those self-adhesive stamps make reuse very difficult (although it can be done).
Never mind uncancelled. How about forgeries? I received this through the mail the other day. I tried to photo the security overprint on this stamp but could not get the right angle.
It has no phosphor bands and the security overlay is the wrong font and only covers half the width each side of a vertical centre line.
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"StayAlert.......Control The Virus.......Save Lives."
Years ago, I decided that every one of us needs to get a Mailer's Postmark Permit, so that we can cleanly & beautifully cancel all of our outbound mail ... at least to each other.
One of these days, I'm gonna get my Mailer's Postmark Permit, and y'all will never hear the end of it.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
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