I am interested in your opinion on how to catalogue a very large collection of not catalogued Offical Seals, Surcharged hand stamps,MISSENT, RTS and other auxiliary hand stamps i such as "Damaged in Transit" and similar hand stamps and MISSENT to where ever. It is interesting
the new oval blue hand stamp of the UK spells the word MISSENT as two words and when you look in the large Random and Hough Mifflin and Collin's dictionaries Missent does not appear. Yet the UK themselves until recently and still continue t o have dozens of two MISSENT hand stamps as will as "Mail Bag Missent to the U.K. " and a small boxed
London Hand Stamp Missent to London Redirected and place for you to manuscript write to where. Of course not really sufficient place. The New light blue large oval hand stamp reads "MISS SENT to the U.K." and this after 2 centuries of and thousands of MISSENT hand stamps..
Our listing Jonathandean8 has 8 listers with all proceeds going to charity. Either UNIFEC which the Family business has support since its inception or a Education Fund with a base donation of $30 million from the Family. The collections which are selling are very diverse were started by my Great Grandfather in the late 20's and with his wealth he purchased many Private treaty collections not just of philately, basically anything on paper and many of the oil paintings purchased for a song from the Artists in the 30's, 40's and 50's are on permanent loan in Art Museums around the world. Since you are now the n more than likely leading eBay seller and no doubt have spent hours looking at the lots of other sellers and no doubt very
knowledgeable authority in your field Perhaps you can give some insight into the policy formulated by Ebay about three years ago perhaps even earlier. It was at least 18 months before we started listing some of the items of our collections which we till do very randomly. What sells are
listed more often. .But with Family business taking a priority and 3 walk in safes and a renovated temperature controlled attic on our Geneva Estate filled with just about everything you can think of produced on paper
or like material, I doubt if even my great grandchildren will make any headway with disposing the collection and my children are in their early teens will make headway with sale of the material.
In response to a question how should uncatalogued hand stamps be catalogued , eBay referred me to their loose "APS Experts". I sent emails to all their executives and administration staff had no knowledge of these experts or societies that advised eBay at the time but referred me to dozen of dealers around the world. This went on for
over a year and some of the replies I received were very comprehensive and long chains of email developed .The consensus was to call "Uncatalogued hand stamp or "hand stamps that had not been written reputable stamp publication" as "instructional markings*??written about in a reputable. Safe Habor receive all the feedback from these stamp dealers and agreed that a disclaimer was not necessary but that the description should include something like this ,"Some of the hand stamps on this cover are uncatalogued and have not appeared in an article in a
reputable philatelic publication. In terms of eBay policy advised by their APS experts , these hand stamps should be regarded as *instructional markings* and not philatelic markings.". I would really be interested in your opinion on this policy.
I have used stars as unless the new Java program permits apostrophes the old one did not. The limitations of Java in the description and internal make a mockery of English grammar. eBay as they introduced their no cash policy with out a company wide noticable broadcast in January 2006, have removed the use full but often semi trained Help Aid sytem they had.It still irritates me when I get an error message to change the highlighted field which are Java code not permissable and nothing is highlight. 20 times or more the issue was placed to Help Aid Customer Service without getting a solution. Their definition of payment terms down to Paypal and nothing else as the Patriot Act which has been mirrored in many countries make bank drafts for international buyers prohibitively expensive. $42 to send a bank draft for collection and US or UK correspondent bank charges $75 or the value of the cheque to certify it and the reverse is probably true. In Israel cashier's cheques may only be in shekels and the closest to Money Orders is Western Union. One of the listers relisted one of our problematic covers with seals and mentioned that the privatized Israel Postal Company with 280 post offices as opposed to the 588 traditional and original Postal Franchises owned the Franchises of EMS Courier services (very, very expensive) and Western Unions and received an eBay warning that Western union falls into the brought definition of cash and equivalents elements of which as a Harvard Graduate with an MBA in Finance I have never heard of. In terms of tracking, when Paypal is not available,
its far superior to registered mail with cash payments.As a very last resort when Paypal is not accepted by the seller. And Paypal has been dragging its feed and still only recognizes 25 feet and still only recognizes about 25 county banking systems to which Paypal balances can be with drawn.
Ebay is probably loosing billions from potential store holders and sellers as a result of Paypal dragging its feet.
So what I am looking for is a an opinion on how uncatalogued handstamps , Official Seals including Damaged by Transit and the like and Damaged by Water or Salt Water and the like and Damaged by Fire and Water should be catalogued.
In the journal Holyland Postal History Hournal No 99 there is an article on how Israel treats under franked mail up to 1974. The article is generally considered
incomplete with between 15 and 20 hand stamp used prior to 1974 not mentioned in the article. Since 1974 then perhaps an additional 50 have been observed on postal covers including sending a surcharge letter with a postcard attached which was originally no numbered and then numbered in white and yellow, where you were asked to attach the insufficient postage plus a penalty with out any apparent consistency. At least 20 different such cards were used. The Solomon Islands also used the same system with out success. In order to improve the delivery time Israel introduced a two tier postal system and a second identical box but painted in yellow was placed adjacent to the
red box. This was done in every town .The yellow box was for local mail and in Netanya and I suspect other towns if a letter was posted in the yellow box and under franked it was surcharged with one of the uncatalogued boxed T ---- hand stamp where the shortfall was written in manuscript on the top and the required post on the bottom. If you
exploited the yellow box and posted mail that was not local in this box it was surcharge by the local mail sorter, not always correctly, and my Aunt certainly exploited this system at the same time tearing the envelope and sending it to a dead address so that it would return with ,luck, a postal seal , MISSENT, surcharged and other auxiliary
markings , some were sent with apparent water damage. The double tier system continued to the late 199's and the remnanats can be seen in Israel when it was abandoned the yellow post box was painted red and most post boxes in cities, towns and moshvim have two identical red post boxes side by side.My Aunt's intention was to write a book on the contemporary treatment of the above . Most countries stopped using Post Due stamps (Israel in 1961) but all post
offices had the post due or to pay stamps at some stage and in anticipation that the receiver would pay the surcharge , if they had the stamps, added a surcharge hand stamp and the amount of the surcharge and date cancelled these post due stamps..There should be no illusion that all were sent to dead addresses as she wanted them to be returned to her. She was with her husband head of the Family
business of Private 8 decade old Hedge funds and also started successful Private Venture Capital Funds investing largely at seed or as angels.The Family business is run by the 8 listers all around the world, myself as CEO and
the next Family generation. All proceeds of this account go to charity.
I would be interested in your opinion on eBay's policy and its relevance today. In the US as the Auxiliary Stamp Society news letter shows that virtually every postmaster made auxiliary hand stamps as required. Some states have their own Official Seal however if pulled off the sorting line in Flushing it is put into an envelope with the
return address showing in a cellophane window and an apology on the back. Some are also stamped on the side "Damaged in Transit" (the identical hand stamp used by Malta of all countries) or "Damaged in the Sorting Prossess. Most counties simply now copy from one other and
English is clearly the dominant language even in what was, Dutch,Portuguese, Spanish, Belgium, French and German colonies, .Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, India, Maldives, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India , Thailand Jordan , Lebanon, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait Dominican Republic and most West Indies and Caribbean Countries and Northern Pacifica and Asia Pacific Rim have English Missent hand stamps. Millions of hand stamps have not been catalogued world wide
and 10's of thousand in the USA.
I am curious to know your opinion on how these hands stamps should be catalogued and if eBay's policy which is clear is still valid. To get a reply out of eBay as you probably have experienced is frustrating. The best you can hope for is a standard reply with a link to there policy statement and regulations which in most cases do mot help you and are
vague. If you suggest something you will immediately get a standard eBay reply claiming ownership to your suggestions and will be regarded as eBay property for use. I have no objection to that.
This problem is often compounded by specialist societies that fail to recognize "instructional" hand stamps as such and write about them as if they were "philatelic hand stamp".They do the same for what obviously are pribate hand stamps not hand stamps of the postal authorities.
My Aunt sent thousands of these hand stamps which she addressed and sent from over 30 countries. I should say hundreds of thousand since she started in the late 1970's
and continues despite her failing health to this day. Not al return and high volumes are required often from multiple countries. Most have Netanya or Tel Aviv , Israel return hand stamp address. You would imagine that Tel Aviv, Israel is now known to most sorters but most of the mail that comes from South America is first missent to Ireland or Iceland or both. Even India. I recently received a series of lots from Sebastian Grunberg (I wish sellers would include documentation with their lots , I think his ID
is Ebay ID is SouthCollector( that was sent by registered mail but missent to Ireland and has two of about 6 current different Missent to Ireland hand stamps in used , then or before MISENT TO ICELAND and also MISSENT TO FALKLAND ISLANDS -go figure how that occurred and the chances of it reoccuring. Other than in most sorting stations the sorter is literate but not well educated. In London sorting station 75 million postal articles a
day ,a few years ago, I was permitted to observe the process -the evening shift-they all work 24 hours a day -perhaps not on a Sunday or in Israel on a Saturday and Muslim Countries a Friday-in that evening shift I did not see a "white " face –no racial slur intended-not even the supervisor.The other reason is the change in shift I did not see a white face and that includes the education system with little emphasis on global geography and maximum emphasis on local geography.This is particularly true in Israel where the emphasis is on Mathematic, Physics, Biology, Electronics and only in passing is global
geography taught. Tremendous emphasis is on local Israel/Palestine history that includes comprehensive local geography. THe night shift sorters are all kids out of school waiting to be conscripted into the army for 3 years and general rule regarding the 223 postal authorities is when in doubt send to the U.K. , Australia, New Zealand if they think the country is in the Pacific or Asia Pacific Rim Area or USA if they think it is in the Caribbean or Wets Indies or a Arab Country. Despite being at Technical War with the U.A.R. Yemen , Kuwait and Saudia Arabia if a Muslin wishes to visit the Mosque of Omar on what Jews call Temple Mount, he can enter the country via one of the bridges of Jordan ,as far as I am aware,. very few do Few do (even though I understand Muslim religions obliges Muslims to visit the Muslim Holy sights at least once in there life time). If he writes a postcard back home in English with no return address it will be sent to the UK or USA to be forwarded. If you address a cover to these countries with a return address in Israel. It will be hand stamp in English , sometimes in French and Hebrew NO SERVICE. Some background to the problem. None of the
contemporary hand stamps in Israel have been catalogued. If you under frank a letter they have an oval handstamp in blue and black that translated reads "Return to Sender (Please) add stamps " with no indication of the amount to add . For at least a year a Misspelled hand stamp Lishloah instead of Lesholeiach (sender)existed (I think only in
blue). Like most Hebrew words they have a 3 Hebrew letter origin and two of the letter were transposed. Grammatically Hebrew is very similar to Latin. It is not an error most Hebrew speakers would have even noticed and compounded by a high % of the population who are immigrants 1.2 million from the ex-Soviet Union. Of the population of 56.8 million Jews about half were born in Israel. There are 1.2 million Arabs and Christians who go to Arab schools and Hebrew
is a second language to them. The Israel Postal Company of course are not responsive to any inquiry . There must be many if not dozens of these hand stamps and it must have taken them ages to find he misspent hand stamp. Israel equal has an unofficial policy to send all overseas
letter mail by airmail providing 1.30 shekels is paid in postage (1.3 shekels was the amount of local postage , it is now 1.5 shekels and and may have been increased) . Of course this is not supposed to known but surface letter rates are requirement of their membership of the UPU. You can still send parcel mail by surface but the difference between airmail and surface mail is rapidly closing. 2-3 quite price hikes have occurred since the Israel Postal Authority which previously was run by a Government Ministry was privatized. Other wise a fortune was spent on new technology, software and equipment which in terms of the Act of the Knesset that privatized the company , the Israel Postal Company is obliged to introduce at no cost to all their franchises which is I would imagine almost complete. This does not include I am told their franchises. It seems a bit ridiculous when some franchises open on Moshavim (private farms but seldom worked as farms) service 60 to 80
families on 99 year leases
So I am looking for comment on how do you describe not catalogued hand stamps. All our lots are accompanied by a blown up digital photograph which I note the listers have become relative expert at and are clear . They also open the envelope if there are postmarks of significance
on the back. I personally think that the Ebay policy is very clear and if included in the their should be no come back. The only private hand stamp that my Aunt used was one recording when the cover returned. So far our record
is 7 years. I look forward to your reply and input.
It goes without saying that Millions of hand stamps world wide are not catalogued and hundreds are added every day. As an experiment we sent to dead addresses in Florida a dozen covers from 12 different countries to all the Postal Codes in Florida and it would appear that each postal code has its own "Missent to Florida FL3XXX" or a high % have. Of course to get the response we wanted we had to send more than one envelope over time to all these post codes.
Jonathan Dean
Ebay ID Jonathandean8
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on Jan-28-07
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on Jan-28-07
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on Jan-28-07
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