A case of bad luck
Last week I received a stamp catalogue I had ordered from Canada before christmas (yes, the delivery took 50 days as it was mailed by surface to cut costs). Anyway, everything seems to have gone pretty smooth until the parcel landed on Finnish postage system.
Regular readers of the blog might guess what happened, as I’ve shown few similar “worldwide mail” items earlier… That’s right… The Finnish postal system placed various delivery label “stickers” directly on top of stamps.
Over 40 CAD worth of stamps overrun by Finnish Post delivery stickers.
There was over 40 CAD worth of stamps with decent cancels and everything except a single 20c christmas stamp (not visible on the photo above) was sieged. And it was definitely not a space issue, as the parcel had plenty of space on the other side.
Anyway… It took me about an hour to get those labels carefully peeled / scraped off. And though I did lose few stamps, I still felt like king of the world as the fauna sheet was saved untouched. But I had more trouble coming my way…
As those who soak a lot might have noticed, sometimes (very rarely) cardboard bends very heavily when it gets wet. Well, that’s what happened to me when I started to soak these off. It practically tore the fauna sheet to pieces before I realized what had happened. That’s right – I lost that gorgeous sheet due to my own actions…Below is a summary of what I was left with.
The fauna sheet broke itself into 5 pieces:
1995 Canada - Migrational fauna. A strip of 5.
1995 Canada - Migrational fauna. A strip of five stamps with traffic lights on selvages.
The migrational fauna stamps were from the first (August 1995) print, as it contains a design error “aune migratrice” (instead of “faune migratrice”). This was fixed with second print (September 1995):
1995 Canada - Migrational Fauna 45c stamp with design error.
A block of four 1990 5 CA$ definitives depicting Bonsecours market in Montreal turned into a somewhat attractive pair as the “removal operation” damaged some of the stamps:
1990 Canada - Bonsecours market (Montreal), 5CA$ definitive stamp. Used pair with traffic lights on the selvage.
Same story with this… A pair of Victoria public library 5CA$ definitives issued in 1996 turned into single collectible stamp due to damages on the other half:
1996 Canada - Victoria public library. A 5 CA$ definitive stamp.
And finally I managed to save a 1 CA$ commemorative for 1976 Summer Olympics in Canada.
1976 Canada - Summer Olympics. A 1CA$ commemorative.
Lesson of the story? Sometimes shit happens…
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Your story makes me want to weep. Hope today is a better day.
Yes, today was a better day… The sun is shining (or actually it’s setting down rapidly as I write this), and it’s “only” -31 celsius degrees outside. And I’m thinking about being brave enough to take a quick walk to my local post office.
I feel your pain on the treatment of your stamps, the
post-office workers should be trained a little bit better,
“Ooops” I mean a lot better. Most of them don’t have any idea what a Stamp collector is or don’t care a hoot as long as the content arrives fairly intact, and yes s… happens.
-31 !!!!!
Send us some heat, we have +31 here…..
Actually weather like this can go on for weeks in January/February, and right now Finland is like one gigantic freezer. I know it might sound awful for those used to warm climate, but more than anything this is just a matter of proper clothing and protection. And hey, this is still a lot warmer than in Siberia
Don’t feel bad – Finland’s is not the only post office that does this. I have a parcel (of stamps, ironically) that was mailed within Canada, and has a similar sticker placed over the better part of a bird pane as well.
And don’t even get me started on pen cancels.
And I can totally agree with Kevin about Canada doing the same thing! You would think that with e-mail “robbing” Canada Post of so much revenue and the realization that collectors are now a big part of their revenue stream that Post Offices would send an e-mail (hahaha) to their workers to advise them to be a bit more careful with the stickers!
I feel your pain on this, that really sucks!
Pen cancels are a pet hate of mine, it’s like they either ran out of ink to properly cancel or they forgot to cancel at the post office and the delivery guy had to do it himself.
Some postmen are a bunch of idiots!… last year one of them left the trolley without brakes on the street where I live while delivering mail, it went rolling down against my car parked, causing a dent on the back door…Royal Mail paid for the cost of repairs (£ 900)L O L !!!…they should do the same for damaging our gems.