Postmarks and Postal Possession

POSTAL SERVICE <CFR>39 CFR Part 111</CFR> <SUBJECT>Postmarks and Postal Possession</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Postal Service. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The United States Postal Service seeks comment on a proposed addition to the <E T="03">Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service,</E> Domestic Mail Manual (DMM). Specifically, the Postal Service proposes to add Section 608.11, “Postmarks and Postal Possession.” This Section will serve multiple purposes. It will define the postmark, will identify the types of Postal Service markings that qualify as postmarks, and will describe the circumstances under which those markings are applied. This Section will also explain that, while the presence of a postmark on a mailpiece confirms that the Postal Service was in possession of the mailpiece on the date of the postmark's inscription, the postmark date does not inherently or necessarily align with the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of a mailpiece. In addition, this Section will advise customers of the options available if they want evidence of the exact date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of their mailpiece. The proposed DMM addition does not signal and would not effect a change in postmarking procedures; postmarks will continue to be applied to Single-Piece First Class Mail pieces, both letter-shaped and flat-shaped, in the same manner and to the same extent as before. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before September 11, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Mail or deliver written comments to the Director, Product Classification, U.S. Postal Service, 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Room 4446, Washington, DC 20260-3436. Email comments, containing the name and address of the commenter, may be sent to <E T="03">PCFederalRegister@usps.gov,</E> with a subject line of “Postmarks and Postal Possession.” Faxed comments are not accepted. All submitted comments and attachments are part of the public record and subject to disclosure. Do not enclose any material in your comments that you consider to be confidential or inappropriate for public disclosure. You may inspect and photocopy all written comments, by appointment only, at USPS® Headquarters Library, 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, 11th Floor North, Washington, DC 20260. These records are available for review Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. by calling 202-268-2906. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Martha Johnson, Senior Public Relations Representative, at <E T="03">martha.s.johnson@usps.gov</E> or (202) 268-2000. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The Postal Service is using this rulemaking to explain the Postal Service's operational use of the postmark and the information conveyed by postmarks; to solicit feedback regarding the content proposed for the DMM and recommendations on how best to educate the public about the added DMM provision once it is finalized; to advise the public that customers who want a postmark aligning with the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of their mailpiece may request a manual (local) postmark at a retail location; and to remind the public of services available for purchase (including, but not limited to, Certificates of Mailing) that provide a receipt proving the exact date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of the customer's mailpiece. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> This introduction begins by sketching the history of postmarking as it developed in the United States. It then describes the use and application of postmarks in the contemporary postal system and acknowledges the postmark's use by other parties in certain instances. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. A Brief History of the Postmark</HD> Contemporary postmarks encompass two separate markings with distinct origins: one that inscribes the date and place of application, and one that recognizes the payment of postage fees ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> via the obliteration or cancellation of pre-paid stamps). Marks inscribing the date and place of application have a long history. Early postmarks in the United States resembled the British Post Office's “Bishopp Mark” (created in 1660), featuring in their top half the month and in their bottom half the date that the Post Office accepted the mailpiece. A February 20, 1792, “Act to Establish the Post-Office and Post Roads within the United States,” established postage fees based on distance travelled and number of sheets of paper, and postmarking practices evolved accordingly: though Congress would pass multiple bills tweaking the criteria for determining postage fees (for example, in 1845, price was indexed to weight rather than to the number of sheets of paper), United States mail thereafter regularly bore indications of the location and date of the mailpiece's origin and of the fee charged for postage. An Act of Congress in 1855 enforced pre-paid postage and empowered the Postmaster General to make made adhesive stamps compulsory. Shortly thereafter, postage stamps became the common currency of the mails. At first, postage stamps were “canceled” or “obliterated” in a variety of ways, including with pen and ink, with the standard date-and-place postmark, or with a “killer” or “canceler” that used a variety of means (including stamping and, occasionally, tearing postage stamps) to prevent stamps from being reused. An order from the Postmaster General on July 23, 1860, prohibited the use of postmarks as canceling instruments; in consequence, two marks, the cancellation stamp and the postmark bearing a location and date, began to appear side by side—a pattern that remained prevalent even after 1863, when uniform prices were adopted for mail between all points within the United States. This pattern was subsequently taken up, in the second half of the 19th century, by early cancellation machines, and it remains visibly present today. Thus, the “postmark” as it is known today historically consisted of two separate markings, with two distinct (albeit interrelated) functions. The cancellation marking served to prevent the reuse of pre-paid postage. The marking with a date and place, which originally correlated (in the United States at least) with a scheme of zoned fee assessments and therefore helped determine the price to be paid, provided an index of time and distance travelled. Both of these functions were created for purposes related to postal operations. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Use and Application of Postmarks in the Contemporary System</HD> As in the past, modern postmarks consist of markings applied by the Postal Service to a mailpiece that: (1) display the location of the postal unit or facility that applied the marking and the date that the mailpiece was accepted by or first processed on equipment in that unit or facility, and (2) where necessary, cancel postage so that it may not be reused. Modern postmarks are typically applied by automation at originating processing facilities, but they also can be applied manually at those facilities, or, upon a customer's request, at a retail location when a mailpiece is presented for mailing: • <E T="03">Automated Machine Cancellations.</E> For Single-Piece First Class Mail, postmarks are applied by automated cancellation machines (currently, by Advanced Facer Cancellation System (AFCS) machines for letter-shaped mail, and by Automated Flats Sorting Machines (AFSMs) for flat-shaped mail). These machines are located in originating processing facilities, including in Regional Processing and Distribution Centers (RPDCs) and select Local Processing Centers (LPCs) within the redesigned network to which the Postal Service is currently transitioning. (90 FR 10857). These machines position and cancel collection mail and perform a variety of other functions ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> reading barcodes on pre-barcoded mail and diverting certain mailpieces onto a reject stacker for additional processing). Machine-applied postmarks register the location of the processing facility and the date of the first automated processing operation performed on a mailpiece at that facility, and, where necessary, cancel postage. • <E T="03">Manual Postmarks on Non-Machinable Mail at Processing Facilities.</E> Where a mailpiece that would ordinarily be postmarked on an automated cancellation machine is unable to be canceled by the machine, the Postal Service may apply a manual postmark to the mailpiece at the originating processing facility. Like automated machine cancellations, these manual postmarks register the facility at which the mailpiece was received and the date the first automated processing operation would have been performed on a mailpiece at that facility. • <E T="03">Postmarks at Retail Locations.</E> While most postmarks are applied at processing facilities, the Postal Service makes manual (local) postmarks available, upon a customer's request, at the retail counter of every Post Office, station, or branch. Like postmarks applied in processing facilities, postmarks at retail locations cancel postage (if necessary), and indicate the location of the retail unit at which the postmark is applied. But because these postmarks are applied (upon a customer's request) at the retail counter when the mailpiece is tendered for mailing, the date on the postmark also aligns with the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of the mailpiece. Under Section 312.2 of the Postal Operations Manual, postmarks at retail locations are free of charge and are available for up to 50 mailpieces per customer; customers who wish to obtain such postmarks on more than 50 mailpieces should contact the local postmaster or other manager in advance to e ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 43k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━