Things which aren't what they used to be no. 371: the Postmark
My last Christmas card of 2007 dribbled through my letterbox yesterday morning. Ooh, I thought, I wonder who that's from, and why it's so late, and peered at the postmark. And peered at the postmark. And peered more carefully at the postmark. And gave up peering at the postmark. What is is with postmarks these days? Why are they so rubbish?
Ah, the good old days of proper postmarks. You remember. Those nice concentric circles, with the town or village around the edge and the date and time in the middle. Postmarks that actually pinpointed where and when your letter had been sent. Once upon a time the location was pretty much exact, rubber-stamped by the village postmistress or in the local neighbourhood sorting office. No scratching your head wondering where an envelope had come from, it was clear as anything for all to see, and extremely precise. No uncertainty about whether your letter had taken hours or days to arrive, the speediness of the postal service was always distinct.
And then the not quite so good days of semi-proper postmarks. Still concentric circles, but very much machine-stamped and not quite so local. Just the name of nearest big town now, enough to narrow down who'd probably sent the envelope, but nothing too precise. And sometimes semi-illegible, with half-formed red letters, which was really annoying when you were trying to check the date of postage. At least you had a chance.
And now we have really rubbish postmarks. Vague black stripy things lightly sprinkled across the corner of an envelope. A few squiggles to make sure you cant use the stamp again, and a few cryptic dots with insufficient meaning. Want to know when your envelope was sent? Sorry, you probably can't read it. The dots on my Christmas card might read 23.12, 28.12 or 29.12, but only the top half of the splotchy lines have printed. Want to know where your envelope has come from? Sorry, no can do. My Christmas card was, if I'm reading the squiggles properly, sent from "South East Anglia". That's a huge area which covers about 20 different people in my address book, and only by ripping the seal did I find out exactly who.
Postmarks now look like they've been printed by a cheap 1980s dot matrix printer nearing the end of its ribbon, rather than a nice firm rubber stamp wielded by a postmistress. A few scrappy marks for the benefit of the Royal Mail, and most definitely not for the benefit of the customer. Who cares if we can read the postmark on an envelope so long as a machine can. Who cares if we can't tell how long a letter's been in the post, so long as they eventually manage to deliver it? Modern postmarks are about being efficient, not informative. And they're most definitely not what they used to be.
