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The postal service, both in the US and elsewhere, makes their best effort to deliver mail, despite how difficult we make it. Some deliveries are just short of miraculous!
1. A postcard from Krakow that was addressed to:
Khumi
Yellow Door
Wilmslow England
nevertheless made it to its destination. Local postman Paul Gardiner knows his houses… and their doors!
More strange delivery stories, after the jump.
2. Paul Bates didn’t know his friend Peter O’Leary’s address, but knew where he lived, sort of. So he addressed a Christmas card with a map! The card somehow arrived at the right office in Cornwall, where a postal worker recognized the name, and the card was delivered -on time for Christmas.
3. Where I live, people without stamps sometimes put change in their mailbox to buy stamps from the mail carrier. That’s hard to do if you don’t have a large horizontal mailbox. What happens if you just attach the money to the letter instead of a stamp? This guy tried the experiment.
4. This postcard had a proper address, and proper postage, and it made it to it’s destination …90 years late!
5. Manuagua, Nicaragua stopped using formal street addresses after the 1972 earthquake leveled much of the city. Now, letters find their way via a local system that gives directions and landmarks on letters and packages. An example:
Donde fue Lacmiel, 2 cuadras arriba, 1/2 cuadra al sur (translated: where previously was located Lacmiel 2 blocks east, 1/2 block south).
6. If you are looking for a different way to mail a letter, you could mail one from underwater. Yes, there are post offices and mailboxes underwater. Gadling lists five of them. This Post Office is off the coast of Vanuatu. You could also mail a postcard from underground at Carlsbad Caverns.
The United States Postal Service has 700,000 employees. Multiply that by the many countries of the world who also deliver mail, and you could have at least that many stories to tell.
Comments (19)
Comment
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A couple of months ago I mailed a banana. Wrote the address and put the stamps right on the peel. It made it to the destination and somewhere along the way they had put it in a bag with a letter of apology for any inadvertent damage.
posted by Jeremiah on 5-10-2007 at 6:35 am
Oh man, I would’ve LOVED to have had a picture of that here!
posted by Miss Cellania on 5-10-2007 at 8:07 am
My stepdad is a mail carrier. He hates it when people leave change. Someone once left 39 pennies, so he left 39 one cent stamps right next to the letter. He did tell me the secret to getting any letter mailed to the right place without stamps. It’s easier than you think.
posted by Jenny on 5-10-2007 at 8:12 am
Jenny I know what it is, I did it by mistake once.
The big blue Mail Boxes you see out on the street, all have the date they were put into place, embossed on the side. Most here in Los Angeles seem to be from the 1940’s-1970’s depending on how old the neighbourhood is.
posted by CropTillDawn on 5-10-2007 at 9:09 am
My mailman is a social force. He does his best to make sure the neighborhood stays friendly.
We have a community mail box, one box with many locked compartments. He cannot get seem to get everyone’s mail in the correct cubby more than twice a week. So we all get to chat while we deliver the mail to it’s rightful addressee.
As a side benefit, it also makes it easier to form a financial support group: “Ya know, Hal, you’ve been getting letters marked ‘final notice before collections.’ You doing OK?”
posted by n2y2 on 5-10-2007 at 9:32 am
The secret to get a letter mailed to the right place without stamps is to but the address you want it to go in the return address space. The post office will send the letter back to the return address due to insufficient postage.
posted by todd on 5-10-2007 at 10:38 am
These are amazing! I know Bill Bryson has similar stories published in one of his American books. Hi-larious.
posted by David on 5-10-2007 at 1:37 pm
JOHN BROWN:
The trick that really interests me at the moment is the secret to convincing people that typing in mixed lower-case is the polite thing to do.
Any suggestions?
posted by n2y2 on 5-10-2007 at 1:47 pm
Costa Rica uses the same system as Nicaragua, without the excuse of a natural disaster. They just do it the way they´ve always done: a mix of landmarks (even ones which no longer stand),cardinal directions, distances in meters and descriptions of how the house is painted and any other instructions which could help. For example if there´s an abandoned car in a lot, they´ll use it as a reference point. Houses don´t have numbers on them, so a good description of the paint scheme is sometimes vital.
posted by medea on 5-10-2007 at 5:51 pm
Don’t know if it’s true but I read (possibly in that Bill Bryson book) that a letter addressed
WOOD
JOHN
MASS.
was successfully delivered to John Underwood, Andover, Massachusetts…
posted by John on 5-10-2007 at 7:41 pm
Hello n2y2, I agree, sometimes when we have what could be considered neat inside information we want to explain it faster than we are thinking. If you want a lot of good ideas on fraud via mail, checks, credit cards, etc…., i suggest you all read the book “Art of the Steal”. It was written by the same person that the movie “Catch Me if You Can” was about. If your up to no good you will love it. I can’t believe they actually print some of the things that they do. Hopefully i addressed your question n2y2. Thanks…….
posted by John Brown on 5-11-2007 at 11:37 am
When my Grandfather was in Hawaii he mailed a coconut to my Mom. The post office just stapled the stamps to the husk.
posted by Info Yo on 5-11-2007 at 1:44 pm
i mailed (and was mailed) a good sized (maybe a foot in diameter) rubber ball with the message and address written on it with sharpie.
posted by Amy on 5-12-2007 at 9:46 pm
One day I would love to try to write the address I want the letter to go to in the return address space and my address on the address in the center space. Then if I don’t attach a stamp they’ll send it to the return address..which is where I would want it to go! That might be kinda illegal though….
posted by miss sparkle on 5-14-2007 at 10:43 am
Our Town
Wired Magazine Mail Contest
posted by Richard on 5-17-2007 at 1:53 am
At the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, there is a small display of letters that were sent in unique ways. The one that sticks in my mind has simply a pencil sketch of Rogers in profile and the word “California” on the envelope. Will Rogers was so well known that the letter was delivered without any trouble!
posted by Ross on 5-17-2007 at 6:02 am
My home state of West Virginia is often confused with that other state next door called just Virginia. Therefore, we often call our state “WEST (by God) Virginia” just to keep people straight on which state we were from. I once addressed a letter to my Mom in our little hometown in West (by God) Virginia and the USPS returned it to me and refused to deliver it with that designation on it! Bunch of spoil sports.
posted by MikiD54 on 5-17-2007 at 11:47 am
A postcard was once addressed with just my name and “Hollywood, CA” (I live in Los Angeles) and it got to me just fine!
ps. If you’re going to do the “return address” scam, make sure you drop the letter in a blue mailbox. Most postal carriers won’t even take the letter from a personal mailbox if it has no postage.
posted by Skye on 5-17-2007 at 2:34 pm
The story about John Underwood, I first heard from my father about 50 years ago. And it sounded like it had been around a long time then.
I have a feeling that the post office is wise to the return address trick. (They’ve probably seen it about 10,000 times.) One tip-off would be if the letter is not mailed in the return address city.
And, finally, I once wrote a check for state income tax due payable to “Reagan’s Looters and Thieves.” It was cashed without comment and returned to me with my bank statement. At the risk of starting a new thread here, I also once wrote a check to “Cash” on a blank piece of paper. It, too, was cashed without comment and returned to me with my bank statement. I don’t think you can do that any more!
posted by Cliff on 5-18-2007 at 7:19 pm