Dead letter mail

Dead letter mail
"Dead letter" redirects here. For other uses, see Dead letter (disambiguation).

Dead letter mail or undeliverable mail is mail that cannot be delivered to the addressee or returned to the sender. This is usually due to lack of compliance with postal regulations, an incomplete address and return address, or the inability to forward the mail when both correspondents move before the letter can be delivered. Largely based on the British model that emerged in the late eighteenth century, many countries developed similar systems for processing undeliverable mail.

The term 'dead mail' is perhaps a misnomer, and several jurisdictions have opted for the use of the term 'undeliverable mail' as more clearly representing the status of the item whose transmission has been impeded. Being internal departments within postal administrations, little information about the dead letter office function has ever been made public. A few journal articles and at least one recently published book (Canadian) dealing with this topic have appeared.[1][2]

Classification as a dead letter is one of the few instances where postal personnel are allowed to violate secrecy of correspondence, ostensibly to search for clues as to the letter's origin or destination. Countries must also set up regulations for the disposal of dead letters, particularly when they contain items of value. Some very valuable items have turned up in undeliverable mail, including a stolen painting by Marc Chagall which turned up in a United States Postal Service sorting center in Topeka, Kansas.[3]

With increased collection and study of the postal markings originating from such offices, the body of literature on this obscure topic may grow. Many countries, including Canada and the United States, have issued special labels for envelopes that have travelled through the dead letter office. Genuinely used examples are highly prized by collectors, although mint labels, because they have no postage value, are often fairly common.

People interested in postal services throughout the world sometimes deliberately send mail to fictional addresses throughout the world to see if a particular nation's postal authority would return the mail to the sender. Collectors of postal markings also use this method in order to receive uncommon postal markings seldom seen in everyday mail.

Email

The Pine e-mail client saves a message to a file named dead.letter if the user cancels the message before sending it.

References

  1. ^ Plain, Brain C. (2006). The dead letter office in Canada, 1830-2002: an illustrated postal history (2nd ed.). Surrey, BC: British North America Philatelic Society. pp. 148. ISBN 0919854885. OCLC 84985892. 
  2. ^ Allison, Sue (July, 2000). ""No Return Address : To the 'Detectives" Who Solve the Mystery of Errant Mail, Every Letter is a Human Tale."". Smithsonian 31 (4). http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/interest_jul00.html. Retrieved 2007-03-19. 
  3. ^ "The Real Chagall". USPS Memo to Mailers. USPS. March 2002. Archived from the original on 2009-10-17. http://web.archive.org/web/20020606083631/http://www.usps.com/memotomailers/march2002.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-17. 

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • dead letter — {n. phr.} An undeliverable letter that ends up in a special office holding such letters. * /There is a dead letter office in most major cities./ …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • dead letter — {n. phr.} An undeliverable letter that ends up in a special office holding such letters. * /There is a dead letter office in most major cities./ …   Dictionary of American idioms

  • Dead letter — Letter Let ter, n. [OE. lettre, F. lettre, OF. letre, fr. L. littera, litera, a letter; pl., an epistle, a writing, literature, fr. linere, litum, to besmear, to spread or rub over; because one of the earliest modes of writing was by graving the… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • dead letter office/dead parcel branch — (See mail recovery center) …   Glossary of postal terms

  • Dead Letter Box —   [dt. »toter Briefkasten«], die Stelle, an die in einem E Mail System nicht zustellbare Nachrichten gesandt werden …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Dead letter office — This article is about the postal facility. For the album by R.E.M., see Dead Letter Office (album). Dead letter office, probably in Washington, D.C.; September 1922 The United States Postal Service started a dead letter office in 1825 to deal… …   Wikipedia

  • dead letter — noun 1. the state of something that has outlived its relevance (Freq. 1) • Syn: ↑non issue • Hypernyms: ↑state 2. mail that can neither be delivered nor returned • Syn: ↑dead mail …   Useful english dictionary

  • dead letter — noun a) An item of mail that cannot be delivered to its intended recipient; after some time it is returned to the sender, or destroyed b) A law that is no longer enforced …   Wiktionary

  • dead letter office — noun the postal facility that deals with mail that cannot be delivered …   Wiktionary

  • Dead Letters — For the concept of undeliverable mail, see dead letter mail. For the 2007 film, see Dead Letters (film). Not Like the Other Girls redirects here. For the album by S.O.A.P., see Not Like Other Girls. Dead Letters …   Wikipedia

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