Pen / Marker Cancellations - Is it Revenue Protection or Vandalism?

"dhwriting" pens on the Helium website, "All of us have probably received packages or envelopes that were posted with beautiful or otherwise very collectible stamps used to pay the mailing cost. Any stamp collector worth his or her salt feels a thrill a desirable stamp arrives this way, out of the blue. In some cases, however, those lovely stamps arrive badly defaced by postal employees using thick marker pens or ball point pens. Their value as used stamps might be fairly high if it were not for these hand cancellations.

"This practice (brutal hand canceling) is becoming more and more common, and stamp collectors all over the world are frustrated by it. It amounts to the essential destruction of collectible philatelic items that would otherwise be prized by collectors."

He/she goes on to say, "Although we understand the desire of the world's postal systems to protect their revenues by preventing the re-use of stamps, we deplore the practice of using thick markers to hand cancel stamps. Can't the postal authorities use machine cancellations? After all, the vast majority of mail throughout the world is already processed by machine. And in cases where there is no 'discernable cancel,' can't the postal employee use a neat handstamp cancellation rather than an ugly, thick line made with a marker? If only they would, the world of stamp collectors would be much happier."

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