Postal Marking

Less ordinary types include forwarding addresses, routing annotations, warnings, postage due notices and explanations, such as for damaged or delayed mail. A key part of postal history is the recognition of postal markings, their purpose, and period of use.

Service marks give information to the sender, recipient, or another post office. Advice marks notify about forwarding, misspending, and letters received in bad condition, letters received too late for delivery by a certain time, or the reason for a delay in mail delivery. Dead letter offices would use various markings to keep track of their progress in finding the addressee, such as a document that the letter had been advertised in the local newspaper. The tracking procedure for registered mail may entail multiple marks and notations.


Auxiliary marks are functional by an organization other than the postal administration. For instance, 19th century mail delivery often relied on a mix of private ships, steamboats, stagecoaches, railroads, and other transportation organizations to transfer mail. Many of these organizations applied their own markings to each item, occasionally saying simply "STEAMSHIP" or some such, while others had elaborate designs. Similar direction-finding notations were also used in the early days of airmail.

The traditional way to be valid a postal marking is with the use of a rubber or metal hand stamp; handwritten notations are sometimes seen for unusual situations or in very small post offices. In the United States, modern postal markings may appear in the form of yellow paste labels with the text printed on them. Many postal administrations now have the ability to print inkjet observations directly onto a cover, either as a barcode for reading by other equipment, or as text.