Jackie Robinson Question

[Sivart31]

Hey Guys,

Does anyone know anything about the weird city postal code stamp on this? It’s stamped “Jack” and “Robinson” in the city location. I assume the signature is fake, but I was more curious about the origin of the envelope.

https://m.ebay.com/itm/JACKIE-ROBINS...&ul_noapp=true

[steve B]

Those are actual post offices, and the cancels are handstamped as opposed to machine cancelled.

At one time, it was a popular thing among some stamp collectors to make clever stuff like this. Sometimes they made a bunch of them, sometimes only a few or one.
The post offices involved had to be ok with it, but at the time most would be.
Just find two towns with names that make what you want and self address an envelope or a few.
The smaller post offices were for quite some time paid a percentage of their mail volume, so they would go along with any legal scheme as long as they sold some stamps. So buy some stamps, put them on the envelope, and ask for them to be cancelled and handed back to you. (My local won't do this, as it may now be against regulations)Then go to the second town and repeat, making sure to leave enough room so the overall effect is not ugly.

It can/could also be done through the mail.

[Sivart31]

So this wasn’t necessarily to commemorate an event? Is it a practice to disguise forged autos?

[SetBuilder]

The term is philatelic cover. See this wikipedia page for more details about what Steve just explained.

Maybe it was just an opportunistic find in a large lot of stamp covers, where the forger chose to add the signature to "complete" the piece.

[steve B]

I just had a quick look, and can't find any important event involving Robinson for either date.

Most covers like this were done primarily for the novelty. Presidents names are pretty common, as most of their last names are easy to find a town for, and most also have fairly common first names.

I could see a "Jack + Robinson " cover as being something the person making it intended to get signed, but that would be unusual.

I can't say much about the autograph, I just don't know enough about it. I will say that after a brief look at pictures on the web it doesn't look good. But I'd put the reliability of my opinion on the signature as being a coin toss.

It could be that it's fake and added after, or a fake intended as decoration on a fun cover, (Back then people often didn't consider what it would seem like years later) Maybe clubhouse or secretarial? The addressee is in Maine, so she probably did it through the mail. I can see her mailing it to the team for the final touch.

[Gary Dunaier]

Originally Posted by steve B

So buy some stamps, put them on the envelope, and ask for them to be cancelled and handed back to you. (My local won't do this, as it may now be against regulations)

Your local post office is misinformed. Handback cancellation service is authorized in the Postal Operations Manual. Here's the relevant information:

231.4 Hand-Back and Mail-Back Service
Postmarks rather than other obliterations should be used to provide the following services whenever they are available:
a. Hand-Back Service
(1) When a customer personally presents an addressed or unaddressed envelope, postal card, or other item described in 231.63 to a postal clerk for cancellation with the current day's postmark, the post office must postmark the item and return it, or hand it back, to the customer.
(2) The envelope, card, or other item does not enter the mailstream. All such materials must bear uncanceled postage at the applicable First-Class rate.

Unfortunately, in my experience many window clerks are unaware of the rule, and there have been instances where skeptical clerks, and even supervisors, refused to co-operate even when presented with documentation. There was one time when I showed a supervisor a letter from USPS headquarters in Washington, DC saying that what I wanted to do was okay, and her response was that "it doesn't matter what Washington says." (I reported this to USPS HQ, with a copy to the local postmaster, and commented that if she was freely willing to say this to a member of the public, I could only wonder what she was telling her subordinates.)

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Gary Dunaier

Your local post office is misinformed. Handback cancellation service is authorized in the Postal Operations Manual. Here's the relevant information:

231.4 Hand-Back and Mail-Back Service
Postmarks rather than other obliterations should be used to provide the following services whenever they are available:
a. Hand-Back Service
(1) When a customer personally presents an addressed or unaddressed envelope, postal card, or other item described in 231.63 to a postal clerk for cancellation with the current day's postmark, the post office must postmark the item and return it, or hand it back, to the customer.
(2) The envelope, card, or other item does not enter the mailstream. All such materials must bear uncanceled postage at the applicable First-Class rate.

Unfortunately, in my experience many window clerks are unaware of the rule, and there have been instances where skeptical clerks, and even supervisors, refused to co-operate even when presented with documentation. There was one time when I showed a supervisor a letter from USPS headquarters in Washington, DC saying that what I wanted to do was okay, and her response was that "it doesn't matter what Washington says." (I reported this to USPS HQ, with a copy to the local postmaster, and commented that if she was freely willing to say this to a member of the public, I could only wonder what she was telling her subordinates.)

Good to know. The last time I tried it was a long time ago. I think 9/9/99 ? I wanted to make maybe 10 covers for the odd date. The clerk said "we can't do that" So I just mailed them to myself with pencil addresses. Interesting experience, one came the next day, six came 3 days later, and the other three came one at a time over the following 5-7 days. I still have them somewhere, as the cancels and bar codes weren't consistent and a couple were damaged - my bad as I didn't include stiffeners not expecting them to be mailed.

The people at the branch I go to now know I usually check the manual to make sure what I'm doing is ok. Like mailing 16mm film media mail. It's pretty non-standard these days, and they didn't know since they hadn't seen it in years.


I have a particular bit of mail I want for my collection, and haven't found a contact to see about getting it. Apparently if you're an antivenin lab mailing to another lab it's ok to mail live scorpions as long as they're labeled properly. Somewhere there's a lab I can beg a used box from.....