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The response from USPS is what I expected. It's unlikely this was in the system for 100 years, but someone put it in the mail recently and the USPS decided to d
by alex_g 6y ago
The response from USPS is what I expected. It's unlikely this was in the system for 100 years, but someone put it in the mail recently and the USPS decided to deliver it.
- colejohnson66 6y agoBut doesn’t the postmark mean it arrived at the destination’s post office (although this was 100 years ago, so things may’ve changed)? So if it has a postmark of 1920, the USPS has it then. It is entirely possible it was delivered, then someone decided to drop it back in the system a few days ago.
- ghaff 6y agoPostmark is at the originating post office (usually). But what you say is still almost certainly true.
- ghaff 6y agoThat seems almost certainly the case. It seems unlikely that any USPS sorting facility or post office where this could have fallen behind something would still be in use 100 years later (at least without extensive renovations/changes).
- tobyjsullivan 6y agoImprobable things happen frequently at scale. One possible scenario is just that this card got lost twice. It could have slipped behind a counter at the original post office and been uncovered when that office was decommissioned 35 years later. Then it would have made its way to a newer sorting facility where either it could have been misplaced again or, more likely, been stuffed in a cabinet somewhere (as I doubt USPS was as adamant about delivering lost mail in the 1950's). That facility could easily be in operation until today - or decommissioned very recently. No idea if anything like this actually occurred. But at 400M+ letters / day, USPS has the scale for unusual circumstances like this to be somewhat regular occurrences.
- wtn 6y agoUSPS was probably much more adamant about delivering lost mail in the 1950s. The level of service was higher, with twice daily delivery.
- codezero 6y agoI never knew they did twice daily deliver, time to google up some more info!
- _whiteCaps_ 6y agohttp://500years.royalmailgroup.com/gallery/delivery-frequency/ http://500years.royalmailgroup.com/gallery/delivery-frequenc... In the UK it was up to 12 times / day in cities!
- ghaff 6y agoTo some degree, I'm sure it was a plot device but 19th century English novels often depended on rapid/same-day communications via letter at least in the environs of London.
- eru 6y agoCompare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Penny_Post https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Penny_Post
- hdjdbtbgwjsn 6y agoThat was considered standard then in London. Royal Mail even had its own underground railways in London.
- Spooky23 6y agoIt was more in some places. My grandma and aunt would mail letters like IMs in 1930s NYC.
- golem14 6y agoRemember the USPS is rumored to have recently dismantled hundreds of sorting machines. Entirely possible that some old mail was jammed in there somehow. Also, cf. "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett.
- organsnyder 6y agoI had that initial thought as well, but there's no way those machines are anywhere near a century old.
- akiselev 6y agoThe sorting machines themselves are certainly not, but the general infrastructure around them sure can be. The World's Most Mechanized Post Office video [1] was filmed circa 1959 and it shows a crazy level of industrialization in the DC facility. Conveyor belts were invented in 1901 or so and such systems can run for a very long time with proper maintenance - for centuries even, replacing everything but the frame. Given how slowly government usually moves, they must have built up to that scale over decades. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuvwoBb7gs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuvwoBb7gs4
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y agothe card is old enough to have been considered an antique in 1970, reinserted into the postal system, then gotten stuck in a "modern" sorting machine for another 50 years until ... TADA !!
- dstick 6y agoGNU Terry
- tjr 6y agoI do not have any data, but could easily imagine some post offices in small towns (say: Brandon, Iowa) have gone largely unchanged for a very long time.
- renewiltord 6y agoIf I can do that, then I'm going to get my tax return postmarked early and then just sit on it for a while.
- colejohnson66 6y ago“What do you mean you won’t pay me? Your requirement said postmarked by $date!”
- tartoran 6y agoThe story seems to be either to get clicks or to intentionally make the USPS look bad, perhaps it has something to do with the election. I bet most people didn't read this part and some of them really formed the conclusion the mail got lost for 100 years in the mail system after skimming over this article.
- takeda 6y agoMaybe as a joke, I doubt anyone would think that DeJoy is responsible for delaying mail for 100 years. Meanwhile I have significant less mail, and on mail that had a stamp I see it took them a week to deliver it (this is local mail, not international). Never seen I such issues with mail as long as I lived here.