On 1 January
2017 the Netherlands postal company PostNL abolished all datestamps in the country.
From this moment on it was no longer possible to go to a post office and get your
stamps cancelled. Customers could still present registered letters or parcels
with stamps on them, but the official way to obliterate those stamps was for
the postal employee to take a pen and scratch the stamps. This of course caused
an outcry among stamp collectors.
On the other
side this meant there was a unique period in Dutch postal history, one I wanted
to include in my envelope collection. I could of course take an envelope, a
stamp and a pen, but in that case there would be no proof that the envelope was
officially posted and delivered. The only way was to send myself a registered
letter with stamps on it.
I took one of my
standard collection envelopes and put exactly the amount needed on it. The tariff
for registered mail national in 2017 is € 8,35 so that meant 9 national and 1
international stamps (9 x 0,78 + 1,33). The lady in the book store (we don't
have real post offices anymore) took a marker and did as PostNL had instructed
her to do. The registration sticker was too big (or my envelope too small) so a
part of it ended up on the back of the envelope.
The proof of
sending the envelope is the receipt with the address (deleted on the scan),
time and date and the barcode number.
Fortunately the
datestamps will return to the post offices from 1 June 2017 ending this
historical period. Also fortunately I have the envelope to prove that this
period really happened.
Date sent: 5 May
2017
Date postmark: -
Date received: 6
May 2017
Number of days:
1
Envelope in
collection: 30
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