Pen Marks on All Post

holditdown · Post by **holditdown** » 17 Apr 2020, 15:25

Hi,

On all royal mail letters, I receive addressed to me have these pen marks, signatures or markings. Does anyone know what they mean? No one else living at my address gets markings on their mail.

Cheers.

Sir Henry · Post by **Sir Henry** » 17 Apr 2020, 16:10

That looks like a T in a circle indicating a tracked parcel that has been scanned in to the delivery office. If as I suspect the contents of the envelope had been paid for by you i.e. your credit card or Paypal account gets used to pay for most of the stuff arriving at your address, then it would only be post with the name of the payee on it that has the marks.

Woody Guthrie · Post by **Woody Guthrie** » 17 Apr 2020, 16:16

We also sometimes mark our bundles in order of delivery especially if we're working with someone unfamiliar with the delivery.

If it's usually just a number that's probably what it is.

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 17 Apr 2020, 19:42

In one of the offices I work at, the posties mark a large "P" on the front of the letters indicating a package/parcel that would be for the same address as the letter. In my regular office, a "P" would be written on the back or nothing written on the letter at all, but instead it's turned back to front. It depends on the postie's own unique package reminder note.

The image above doesn't really look like a "P" (or maybe a very flat looking one with a large loop around it), but it just reminded me of the system I've seen used to indicate an accompanying parcel.

ssdd · Post by **ssdd** » 17 Apr 2020, 20:13

It's a bit of a puzzle this one. All of the above comments are in fact practices that do happen. However, reason would dictate, that at some point another person living at the address should have a mark on a piece of their mail.
It's interesting why the mark appears only on the OPs mail.
The only thing I could suggest is to ask the postman next time you see them...

A question to you holditdown. You say the mark appears on all Royal Mail letters. So if, for example, you have two letters delivered at the same time, does the mark appear on both?

holditdown · Post by **holditdown** » 18 Apr 2020, 16:19

Sir Henry wrote:That looks like a T in a circle indicating a tracked parcel that has been scanned in to the delivery office. If as I suspect the contents of the envelope had been paid for by you i.e. your credit card or Paypal account gets used to pay for most of the stuff arriving at your address, then it would only be post with the name of the payee on it that has the marks.

The letter was paid for myself with Paypal click and drop so that could be the reason. I just got another letter today from a credit card company the marking looks different this time!

Sir Henry · Post by **Sir Henry** » 18 Apr 2020, 17:04

That looks like a 5 which as has been mentioned previously is just to indicate which bundle of mail follows on when faced with a bag full of bundles and parcels.

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 18 Apr 2020, 17:05

I was thinking about this query today, holditdown, and there was one other type of mark posties make on a letter: that is "SP" or "SPEC", which means Special. But that's for a letter or package that's deemed as a special delivery, and is often marked when the Royal Mail Special Delivery sticker isn't affixed (often related to overseas special deliveries).

However, your letters don't appear to be special deliveries and the marking doesn't look anything like "SP"/"SPEC", but it does look a wee bit like an upside down "4" or "5", which leads me to believe what Woody Guthrie previously mentioned. It could be just a number a temporary or cover duty postie uses to mark the start of a delivery route with your letters at the top of a bundle.

Still, it's too tricky to tell because it's too much of a squiggle to be certain.

Janet Brum · Post by **Janet Brum** » 18 Apr 2020, 20:30

Woody Guthrie wrote:We also sometimes mark our bundles in order of delivery especially if we're working with someone unfamiliar with the delivery.

If it's usually just a number that's probably what it is.

I see numbers in a circle, it`s how we mark the bundles of mail, your postie might be a new starter or someone who doesn`t know your roudn very well and needs markers.
It`s nothing sinister there :)

PS, I wonder if your house number is at the beggining of your street?

NewPostieUK · Post by **NewPostieUK** » 19 Apr 2020, 17:52

I walk up a certain street with a bundle of mail. I have on occasion got half way up and come across a letter turned round, indicating a parcel for that house. I have to go back to the van to get it. The first house is number 3. I have started putting a 'P' on the first letter to remind me to get out a packet for further up the street. In busy times like these, I might put '3p' to show there's three packets, or I might put 11, 23, 30 to show there's packets for those houses.

I have two bread trays for bundles of letters. On a busy day I might have too many bundles to fit in the trays. If there's 4 bundles left, I want to see at a glance which bundle I need next, so I'll mark them 1, 2, 3, 4.

I have been known to put other marks on letters to remind of things, such as 'EB!' to remind me to empty the box.

There are all kinds of weird and wonderful reasons there could be marks on your letters.