Report All Obscene Mail to Your Local Potsmaster

January 26, 2016 5:30 AM

collectpostmarks.com is a US-focused introduction to the hobby of postmark collecting. The site includes a detailed how-to guide for collecting USPS postmarks, a calendar of time-limited pictorial postmarks (gleaned from the USPS Postal Bulletin), and a gallery of postmarks to whet your appetite. [via mefi projects]
posted by Westringia F. (10 comments total)

report all inappropriate pots to your local potsmaster
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 5:36 AM on January 26, 2016 [8 favorites]

What, like erotic Greek pottery?
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:46 AM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's fun to imagine the discussions that must have happened for some of these designs. In the linked gallery, you can discover that the postmark designed for the Touro Synagogue stamp is "Jewish Participation in the U.S. Civil War" which is probably not the first thing you'd think of when commemorating the oldest surviving synagogue in North America.
posted by math at 6:03 AM on January 26, 2016

It is very difficult to get on a U.S. postage stamp, so for many organizations a pictorial postmark is the closest they'll ever get to postal recognition. Applying is pretty simple, as it is done with the local postmaster.

In a previous life I wrote the Postmark Pursuit column for Linn's Stamp News. I saw a lot of mundane and poorly-designed postmarks, but a lot of very cool and interesting ones, as well. I first learned of Phineas Gage (previously on MeFi) through a pictorial postmark.
posted by zakur at 8:11 AM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Crying of Lot 49 has severely influenced my attitude towards all things postal.

/Ah, just noticed the tags. 📯
posted by benito.strauss at 11:11 AM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Great post, Westringia F.

I collected postmarks here in the U.K. as a kid (Mother: "Why do you always have to be different?!"), but they were very mundane in the main back in the day.
posted by On the Corner at 11:50 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

In a previous life I wrote the Postmark Pursuit column for Linn's Stamp News

Then I owe you thanks for collectpostmarks.com coming to be in the first place, zakur. "Postmark Pursuit" was the first section I would turn to in every issue of Linn's. If you wrote the column at any point between, say, 1992 and 2009, your column was awaited with glee by at least one person, and he went on to build this website.

So: thank you.
posted by quarantine at 12:09 AM on January 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

> Great post, Westringia F.

Aw, I appreciate it, but it's all quarantine's doing; all I did was import it from Projects to the blue because I loved it so much.

Do they do pictorial postmarks for special occasions in the UK, On the Corner?
posted by Westringia F. at 6:24 PM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

> for many organizations a pictorial postmark is the closest they'll ever get to postal recognition. Applying is pretty simple, as it is done with the local postmaster.

Oh, wow, how cool. And it blows my mind that it's free:

If your pictorial postmark is approved, the Postal Service will set up a temporary retail station at your event and produce the pictorial postmark hand canceling device at no cost to you.

There's lots of other interesting esoterica at that link, too, like the fact that cancellations and postmarks used to be separate things, with stricter laws about the fastness of the cancellation ink.

Now I wonder what it would take to get the post office to approve a Pynchonesque stamp....

Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn
posted by Westringia F. at 6:54 PM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Now I wonder what it would take to get the post office to approve a Pynchonesque stamp....

"I'm sorry, sir, we're all out of Thomas Pynchon. Might I interest you in William Pynchon?"
posted by quarantine at 7:43 PM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]