New large font postmark turns up nationwide

Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke

A new postmark that features much larger print than its predecessor is hitting the corner of envelopes nationwide.

Shown nearby is a sprayed-on postmark from Fort Wayne, Ind., dated Sept. 19, with very large type in a three-line format to the left of wavy bars.

Linn’s colleague Charles Snee brought the envelope to my office the second he saw it because it was quite unusual. At first, the thought was that the cancel could be a mistake, but the next day, a similar example arrived from Springfield, Ill.

After seeing that second example, we quickly felt this might be a nationwide rollout, and indeed, that is what is happening.

“We are simply working to improve postmark print quality and readability nationwide,” said United States Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan in response to a Linn’s inquiry.

The new postmark is much more legible, and it seems that different things are also being tried with the character limits.

The Fort Wayne example is three lines: “FT WAYNE IN, 467 PM 1T, 19 SEP 2024.”

The Springfield example omits the state and is four lines: “SPRINGFIELD, 625, 20 SEP 2024, P 2 L.”

For those unfamiliar with some of the letters in the cancel, the 1T is a reference to the machine number, and the PM or P refers to the time of day, though most cancels are PM and few, if any, in recent times use AM.

Making postmarks more legible is understandable. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this is being rolled out within weeks of the upcoming election, but that’s just my speculation.

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