Metered Stamp Error. How Extensive Was It ?

Came across this metered stamp with both pre printed (CVP22) & selective print (CVP86). Scott notes it as a failure to discontinue the selective print on some machines when the pre printed stock was installed but does not comment on how extensive it occurred. I have seen in posts that the system no longer tracks these things in detail or identify them separately. I assume it was wide spread and common but I find no documentation. Can anyone elaborate on this.

Documentation requires interest in then study of the area in question. This usually require multiple individuals to collaborate on the subject matter. Official records can often be required for foundational information if such records exist and can be accessed.

All the above said to relate, there is very little current collector and researcher interest in the material you show.. Want to start? Well actually you have.

This is a postage stamp web site & this is the US back of the book forum & this is a stamp from the back of the book so I was hoping someone would know something. I am confused by your response. I'm sorry you are not interested in this part of the collecting hobby. Maybe someone else will know something.

I will have few answers either. I think you may be expecting too much of the USPS to document or report every (or even one?) occurrence of placing the incorrect paper roll into the vending machine. Does it change any postal accounting when this happens? It would be interesting to see the instruction manual for programming these machines and installing a new roll of labels.

Nor am I quite sure what you want Scott to do beyond mentioning it as well as they do by describing the process by which the error occurred. Many of the chapters in the Scott catalog rely on specialists or societies to create and maintain updated listings. I suspect the Scott editors rely heavily on members of The Meter Stamp Society for this chapter. They would be a good place to bring your questions. Have you looked at their website and publications? As for the "extensiveness", I agree fully with the direction parcelpostguy takes, this is the kind of information which takes collective searching by a group of collectors from across the country/world to combine their data into a summary which begins to close-in on the complete details. Someone has to do or head-up the original research. That could be you!

As a disclaimer, I do not actively collect or study these either. They simply accumuate in a stack until I eventually find someone who wants to buy the lot minus a small type collection I would retain. I won't write about them or exhibit them or even mount them in a binder for myself. I do not have an example of this error. Thus I only am preserving CVPs for someone else in the hobby, since the hobby has so many facets that nobody can have a truly deep interest in everything philatelic. Try as I might!

I just assumed someone in the stamp community would know something. If no one knows then I won't get any further in my search here. My curiosity to know. Stamps are becoming a thing of the past more quickly than the collecting community wants to accept. I think it is a mistake that the electronic side of mail seems to be ignored when that may soon be the only means of sending.

It will be interesting to see what responses I get when I start asking about metered postage. That subject seems to be very thin on commentary. Even though it was a usps sponsored activity no one seems to know much.

Butchie:

Before you start slamming the meter stamp community even before asking a question, take a deep breath and do some research.

You need to checkout the meter Stamp Society. They have a vast repository of information about meter postage stamps worldwide.

https://www.meterstampsociety.com/

United States Wiki Meter Stamp Catalog
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Unite...tamp_Catalog

International Wiki Meter Catalog
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Inter...tamp_Catalog




Let's stay away from the negative attitude here. While the Stamp Community Family forum has a number of very knowledgeable people who answer questions like yours, we are neither perfect or all-knowing. Just because we cannot provide the answer you want, when you want it, does not mean it is not out there.

Take your search elsewhere and ask other forums. I know several people who write exhaustively on this subject but they are not on this board, and may not be on any board.

Keep asking in other resources, but do so with the attitude you want to learn, and do not criticize just because the answer is not spoon fed to you.

While I have no idea how widespread the overlapping printing was, here is an example that I have with the Mr Zip printed on the mailbox design, along with an article from Linn's mentioning a handful of others that have been found with either the Mr. Zip or the Flag motif. Maybe searching the Linn's archive or other philatelic press will find newer articles with more covers from different cities that may help address your inquiry about how common it is.

Anyone into these need to be aware of the Central Florida Stamp Club and their CVP PDF:

http://www.centralfloridastampclub....es042023.pdf

My sincerest apologies if any of my comments were taken as a slam against any aspect of stamp collecting. None were intentioned to ever be taken that way although I seem to have a habit of having things sound like that. Please forgive me. If it involves postage & moving the mail I collect it all. Bought my first collection at 16 from a friend whose father had collected. I spend hours searching & exploring to better identify what I have. Now at 83 years young I am almost an amateur & down to those shoe boxes that we all throw odds & ends in. I still have questions & I will keep asking.

Thanks to all who posted leads. The Linn's article seems to imply that there may not be an abundance of examples. I have been to most & will check the rest.

Replies to many threads (including this one) often fall along the lines of the garbled quote usually attributed to Einstein "Don't memorize what you can look up". Correspondingly, many of us don't carry around encyclopedic knowledge even for the areas we specialize in, but rather we know where to find information and point out references and links for you to do the level of exploring you want to do. The collective knowledge and research skills of the participants here are quite amazing. And yes, posts are often short Tweet-style replies without tone rather than flowery.posts running on for pages.

While the Linn's article is undated, the last paragraphs suggest it is from mid-January 2013, as a breaking news story rather than reporting back from a "request to readers to report their finds" and much too thin to be a census. It's too bad they did not ask directly for reader reports. It often takes a generation or more for things like this to become appreciated. The Prexies, Liberty series, Prominent Americans, etc., have become popular only in recent decades. Accumulating current mail gets one in on the ground floor!

Mail moves with "franking" meaning proof of postage and fees paid, be it postage, free-franks, permits, penalty envelopes, meters and paid markings (not intended to be all inclusive).

As is often noted, one cannot collect everything. So this 'one,' me, chooses not to actively seek out CVP meter imprints. Do I have some? Of course I do gleaned from incoming personal mail.

My point as expanded by John Becker, was even with interest, it takes time to bring together information and then condense it into non-raw documentation. How much time? Well that depends as shown by the quote I lifted from the Meter Stamp Society website:




All that said, I do collect some permit and meter mail if it relates to certain aspects of US Parcel Post beginning 1-1-1913 and fourth class prior to 1-1-1913. I limit my interest, so far, to only 19th and 20th century material with insured examples only post 1980. My focus it postal history.

I began in the subject area just prior to 1983 with Special Handling (supplemental parcel post fee service) followed by the Parcel Post and Parcel Post Postage Due stamps. I also specialize in other areas but again they do not include 21st Century material. My years long research, proving the stamps could be on cover on that day was used to get a good certificate for a cover valued at close to $50,000. Years later my research on postal markings helped determine the cancellations tying the stamps to the cover was from a fraudulent cancelling device previously unknown.

Another fact of life is that I use stamps to send my mail and where I live, the five closest post offices do not do any computer vending. These are all one person offices with a shared back up person(s).

The Linn's article is from the Feb 18, 2013 issue.

This is an example of why John Becker and I both explained that it can take quite sometime for students to acquire the information needed to produce useful to others documentation.




Here is an example I just acquired. The meter stamps ran the price up I believe, but I picked this item up as an example of "Delivery Confirmation" postal history. Now it will remain out of view of vended meter folks as it will live in a specialized collection of USPS service fee services. Before it has a chance to return to the collector realm, it will be unseen for some period of time, likely years; unlike the decades some of my material has lived in the general dark.



One quality of the internet is that it allows for locating items quickly. Thus I am adding this string for ease of future location by students of the vended meters, zazzle.com stamps.com photostamps vended postage private issued vended postage.

I was one of six bidders for this, eBay item number:156667641611.

I have yet to learn how to copy quotes into a box to respond about but to parcelpostguy in this day and age there is nothing quick about finding things on the internet. Any web search I make is loaded with dozens of pages of hits that have absolutely nothing to do with the search criteria, is useless & a waste of time not to mention the ones that end up totally false. & they are always the first ones that show & all too often the questions are never answered by any of them. Even engines that promise to eliminate the trash are quickly overwhelmed with the BS.

I was also wondering what string you were adding to help in finding things?? I'm having difficulty understanding how your references apply.

I'm glad you won the bid. I find eBay cluttered with as many or more non relevant hits as a regular web search no matter how detailed the search question is.

Under the new posting window, click on the "Switch to Full Reply" button and a more detailed posting window opens the do this:








This:




The words in green above will trigger this post to come up on a Google or Google type search. Here is the return for doing a Google search after hitting the SCF "Search" button as shown in the upper right corner of the screen shot:



Some search words in a general Google search produce many, many returns, especially for some commercial companies. So, yes, sifting through them can be a pain. However while a philatelic student may take the time do do it, they also have learn the short cuts such as searching this forum SCF in a more targeted way.

Searching on eBay is a continuing art form and learning curve. Eventually one learns the search methods that work for most of what you are looking for.