When I go to the post office to mail a letter, there are two slots: one for “stamped” and one for “metered.” So if I’m mailing a Netflix envelope, for instance, with the pre-printed barcode-type postage, which is it?
I think “metered” as being the stamp that is printed with a postage meter, specific to each letter, not the pre-printed bar code like on a Netflix mailer. But it’s not a stamp, of course.
I’ve been just shoving it in the “stamped” slot. I wouldn’t be surprised if both slots drop into the same box behind the wall anyway. But still, I wonder which slot is the “right” one.
Technically, anything with pre-paid postage would count as metered, since the stamp doesn’t have to be cancelled.
However, I was at my local Post Office the other day, and had a similar question about a Priority Mail envelope that I had just paid postage for on the lobby machine that prints out stamps for you.
Since a postal worker was standing right there, I asked him which slot I should put it in. His answer (I am not making this up), “It doesn’t matter, they both go to the same box in the back.”
FWIW, this is a new PO that just opened about 6 months ago.
I asked a postal worker emptying the outside mail depositories this question, since she had already emptied the ‘metered mail’ depository. She informed me that metered & stamped all go to the same place, so I can just throw it in the bin she was lugging around (it was then I noticed she only had one bin for all 4 depositories).
Maybe metered/stamped is some legacy function left over from pre-computer days.
Postal worker checking in (okay, not a US one, but it should be similar)…
All mail posted that way goes into a machine called a Culler Facer Canceller. After being tipped into the hopper there, a guy will manually cull out any large rubber banded bundles of business mail (these tend to be already neatly faced up), and the rest of it goes into the machine. Stamps and metering dye both have a certain phosphorescent component, and the machine uses this, assuming they are at the top right of the envelope, to stack all the letters up the right way. Once this is done, they are automatically cancelled. The machine doesn’t care what type of mail it is. Once they are in the system, they are processed in the same stream from start to finish. Franking/Metering impressions = stamps from the PO point of view. Business reply mail, bulk mail and other stuff are different, but stamps and metered mail are the same.
Just to add that, in the old days there was a difference - franked/metered mail wouldn’t be cancelled, as a franking strip already has the time and town on it, and over-cancelling would result in an ugly red and black illegible mess.
These days, the old-fashioned ‘GG’ postmarking machines and manual postmarking are a thing of the past in most areas. Those methods produced a heavy, thick black postmark. Modern postmarks tend to be a thin, grey, small line of text produced by a computer. These can be placed right over the top of a metering strip without concern, eliminating the need to separate the mail types. It does look a little ugly, but the PO doesn’t care these days. When I first started at australia Post, we had posters up reminding us to “MAKE YOUR MARK. MAKE IT CLEAR”. That was back when they took pride in things like that. Then, some young whizzkid number cruncher manager decided that we were losing money because the wages lost in having a guy postmark stuff represented a higher amount than the lost revenue in having the occasional scrooge steam off a stamp for reuse. So, for a while there, some mail wasn’t postmarked at all. Now the machines come with the ability to do it, so we do it, but philatelists must cringe at the results.
Then why do the boxes have special designations on them?
I understand why some mail slots in old post offices are labeled some way – they may be legacy labels from long ago – but my post office just built two new outside curb boxes. One says “priority mail only”, the other, “metered mail only”. So I can’t mail a stamped letter? The other side of the boxes lack such designation, so I am tempted to get out of the car and put it in the sidewalk slot, but it’s obvious they go in the same hopper. And I have watched them being emptied and both boxes’ mail is combined. Why the signs, then?
For the same reason supermarkets have a recycling bin for bags that gets emptied into the trash anyway - because people expect/like it. It probably saves the PO staff from fielding endless queries. Easier just to let the punters think there’s still a difference rather than have to educate them all.
AFAIK the Post Office no longer “Cancels” stamps, except by hand by the postal clerk when asked to do so or to protect the ’ seals’ (gummed tape) on Registered and Insured packages of value.
Letters are dumped in a bin aligned, scanned for correct postage, sorted, and flipped to orient them for the automated feeders to the scanner clerks who direct the non bar-coded ones on their way.
But I don’t see how that makes any sense. I don’t think anyone expects to find two slots marked “stamped” and “metered” or that anyone “likes” the two slots. I’m pretty sure most people couldn’t care less and just want put mail in a slot and go. It’s only when given the choice of two slots, with the implication that one is right and one is wrong for the letter in hand, that they care at all. If they showed up one day to find just one slot that said “put all mail here,” I seriously doubt anyone would complain and start asking for the two slots again.
If I’m understanding the responses here, modern postal sorting doesn’t require the mail to be deposited in two bins, and it all gets mixed up immediately anyway. So are the two slots just a holdover that hasn’t been worked out of the system yet? Does it require reams of paperwork and an architectural study to build a new post office without the old slots?