Machine postmark
Encyclopedia
Postmark
thumb|USS TexasA postmark is a postal marking made on a letter, package, postcard or the like indicating the date and time that the item was delivered into the care of the postal service...
or cancellation on mail
Mail
Mail, or post, is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects: written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal service...
that is applied by a mechanical device rather than with the use of a handstamp. Nearly all machine-cancellation devices apply both postmark and cancellation simultaneously. While remote areas of the world still use handstamps, machine cancellation is ubiquitous, and in the industrialized nations the vast majority of mail is cancelled by machine.
United States
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the first successful postmarking machine was developed by Thomas Leavitt
Thomas Leavitt (inventor)
Thomas Leavitt patented, along with his brother Martin Leavitt, the first machine in the U.S. that made machine-cancelled postal letters practicable, enabling the United States Post Office to increase the volume of mail it handled, quickening the pace of delivery and allowing customers to more...
in the 1870s, with covers known from 1876. By 1880 Leavitt machines were in use in twenty cities. Cancellations were of a variety of forms, including horizontal and diagonal lines, as well as "football" shapes. The American Postal Machines Company soon got into the business, with postmarks appearing from 1884, and became successful with a machine known for its speed of processing.
Slogan cancels also first appeared in the 1890s, initially to advertise the Pan-American Exposition
Pan-American Exposition
The Pan-American Exposition was a World's Fair held in Buffalo, New York, United States, from May 1 through November 2, 1901. The fair occupied of land on the western edge of what is present day Delaware Park, extending from Delaware Ave. to Elmwood Ave and northward to Great Arrow...
in Buffalo, New York, gradually expanding to include a wide variety of uses. Slogans are commonplace today, with the US Postal Service still using them to promote special events, as well as to encourage better mailing practices (use of ZIP Code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
, proper addressing, etc).