Long before either Mad or Playboy even existed, they were doing this kind of this with Ripley’s Believe It Or Not – sending postcards with the name in rebus form (Bee Leaf “It” Oar Knot). These would actually arrive, the way the Riplety’s people tell it.
I have received mail with nothing but: my first name, last name replaced with similar, but funny, word; the wrong route number, and the proper town name and ZIP code. Hell, it wasn’t even late. A great deal depends on your PO and their goodwill.
Not ordinarily. A complete address was expected BUT mail then and before was often delivered with less information.
IIRC Ripley’s book “Believe It or Not” had examples of far more meager information.
A Postal Railway Mail Service clerk had to memorize all the postoffices in the several states which were served by his rail route assignment. No Zips, nada.
It seems like today with 9 digit zips, automated route sorting, etc. that more than a few route carriers can’t even find their routes.
I don’t know about now, but GAMES magazine used to have an “Envelope of the Month” award for the most unusual envelope addressed to them.
The envelopes often had some kind of puzzle that had to be deciphered in order to read the address. I think one of the magazine’s editors once wrote something to the effect, “The people at the post office told us that whenever they get an envelope like this, they pretty much assume it’s meant for us”.
Forget “just require” - when I lived out in the country as a child (just in the 80’s!) we didn’t have a street number, so it’s not like they could have mailed it to anything else. We had a route number and a zip code, and we got our mail in Eastover. (And we were glad to have it!)
I remember the same Ripley’s stunts which CalMeacham and spingears mentioned. I also remember that Groucho Marx occasionally got mail delivered to him in Hollywood which had nothing more than a caricature of him (glasses, eyebrows, cigar) on the envelope.
The ‘general delivery’ is alive and kicking all over the world, where outside the US it’s known as poste restante. Google it - you’ll find thousands of post offices where they do it. In the days before email, this is how I communicated when travelling in Asia.
Addresses like the OP’s still exist in Ireland. Outside major cities, postal codes don’t exist, and even in larger towns the postman tends to know the location of his customers by name.
My wife’s mother can be contacted by:
Her Name
Her Village
Ireland
Putting the county is preferable, but if the village has a unique name, it’ll get there.
Even in Dublin I once went into my local post office, that covers thousands upon thousands of addresses, to pick up a parcel, and the guy behind the counter said “mrs jjimm [she has a different surname to me] - she’s your wife isn’t she? There’s a letter for her here.”
I have some postcards that were sent to my father from around the country in the fifties. They just say his name, the town, and the state, and obviously arrived. As stated above, it all depends upon the familiarity that the postal employees have of their area, and their willingness to take the time to figure something out.
That’s good to know. Then why pay for a P.O. box?
Do they still have “dead letter” rooms?
Bartleby would prefer not to tell you.
According to Wikipedia, the little barcode printed on most letters these days is a translation of the ZIP code, the additional four numbers in the ZIP+4, which narrow the address down considerably (how much, exactly, depending on where it’s being delivered), and then an additional two digits which further specify the exact delivery point (“in theory,” wikipedia notes). Therefore, mail may get through with just those 11 numbers, and nothing else.
What’s more, P.O. boxes each have a unique ZIP+4 code, so I imagine that’s all you’d need to send to a P.O. box as well. The +4 code for General Delivery is the ZIP of the post office and then 9999, but of course you’d have to specify a name or something.
I just yesterday received a letter that had misspelled first name, misspelled last name, no building number, wrong street name (misspelled so badly as to be unrecognizable), no apartment number, misspelled town name, right state, right 5 digit zip. I live in a fairly large town so I don’t know how they managed to get it to me.
I think the ZIP+4 narrows down the address to a few houses on the street, so theoretically, just the name and the right ZIP+4 code should be enough. Actually, I may try sending some stuff just to test this.
A dearly departed member of one of my mailing lists used to tell about how his grandfather used to receive mail from several Eastern European countries addressed as follows:
ISSERLIS [his surname]
ENGLAND
I’ve only skimmed the thread, but I think this one wins the prize for concision.
Scarlett, who remembers the GAMES Envelope of the Month, back when the magazine was still a good one
Evidently British post codes are more precise than American zip codes. When living in “the greater London area” (Highgate actually) I often received mail from the US where the only correct information on the envelope was my name and my post code.
Obviously, we’re not talking “small town” here. My postman told me that the post code got it as far as routed to him and he remembered my name and that I was a yank and so letters from the US were to be expected. Come boxing day, he always got a proper gift; and well deserved they were, in my opinion.
Yeah, I live on a major London street and every building has its own postal code. For example, we’re SW4 7UN, whereas the one across the street is SW4 7TL. I imagine a letter with nothing but the postal code would easily make it here OK. I don’t know if this uniqueness applies to residential areas or smaller towns, though.
Today, in Colorado (US) some counties do not have rural delivery or in town delivery. You must have a PO Box to get mail. You can get mail delivered to a PO box at the closest Post office where you live in the county that you live in, and you won’t have to pay for the box.
Since we live just over a county line, and drive to a different county every day to work, we are paying for a box at the PO in the county we work in.
We (all the residents in the county) had a bit of a battle about that with the PO a few years ago.
“Everyone else gets free mail delivery, ummmmm, why do we have to pay for a PO box?”
My mother recently got a letter delivered with just her first name and zip code. It’s not really a small town (23,000 population), but she’s lived there for nearly 70 years.
I suspect this may account for several mysterious delivery failures addressed to my new name. This is preposterous. They still insist on delivering mail addressed to earlier occupants that haven’t lived at this address in years, after we’ve repeatedly told them those people moved, but they blow off Johanna mail, after the carrier was told yes she does live here. Something here doesn’t add up.
Since this was a nationwide contest I’m quite certain that the company sponsoring the contest arranged with the US Postal Service that all mail addressed “Jack Benny, Hollywood, CA” went to the main Hollywood post office and thence to the mail bag for that contest.
Jack Benny never saw any of it.