There are several mailboxes in front of the P.O. as well as the usual ones spread about town. They have various pickup times shown on the front. Some as early as 9 A.M. and some as late as 5:30 P.M.
Now the question is: does it matter which box I use? Does the mail from each box get taken to the cental office and held until maybe 6:00 P.M. when it’s gathered and sent on to the next step in the process. or will mail picked up from a box at 8 A.M. make it to a destination sooner than mail picked up from a box at 5:30 P. M.?
I realize that there are lots of variables such as airmail or surface and distance to the destination. But in general, am I better off dropping the letter in a box with an early pickup?
Depending on your post office, you might as well go for the earlier delivery.
IIRC, mail goes out of the PO several times per day. I’ve found that by mailing a bill at 8 am, it can be at its destination a day (or sometimes two) earlier than if I’d chosen a later pickup.
If the item is for local delivery, the post office might even deliver it the same day. Where I live, any mail dropped in the local mailbox by 7 am is guaranteed for same-day delivery, as long as it’s within ZIP code 17013. A handy thing to know if I need to get paperwork or whatever locally, and I don’t have time to hand-carry it.
I thought that maybe they would hold the stuff until they had a “load”, or maybe they only send it on once a day. Of course it may vary from location to location.
It does. My old local PO in East Texas had one load going out per day, usually at about nine at night. My current PO has several loads going out per day, but it’s in a larger town.
I’d think that any St. Louis PO would have several loads going out per day. (Don’t forget that more than one PO might be loading mail onto the same truck.)
Judging from personal experience, in at least some parts of the St. Louis area the question of when one posts a letter can make a considerble difference. I have placed a letter in a box outside the Clayton Post Office prior to 7:00 a.m. and seen it delivered that same day.