Postcards from the USA: Customs took its’ share

In late October I found a stack of records on a tag sale in Old Saybrook for a quarter a piece. I went through them looking for bands/songs/album titles fitting for postcards. I found a quite niece one for my little Princes Ida: The Platters: My Old Flame (here on youtube for most of the world outside of Germany to hear). I had never heard of neither band nor song before.

At first, as with many other postcards during that week, I had used a piece USPS Priority Mail label # 228 as the address label pasted over the whole in the middle of the record. At the post office I was told I had to replace or cover the label if I wanted to avoid having to pay for priority shipping (which would have been over USD 40) although the Priority Mail Logo could not be seen. In the first two pictures you can still see the record with the original label:

Yesterday I went to see Princess Ida and her parents and got to see the Postcard after shipping. Three unusual changes had occured:

•  Right at the post office I had pasted a piece of paper as new address label over the Priority Mail Sticker to appease Postmaster Chris. Usually, I never give a return address. On purpose. Apparently, somebody (Chris, I presume) had added it anyway after accepting it.

• The “Free Art” Sticker has been pasted over with a nice bureaucratic-green Sticker. Roughly translated it reads:  “Passed customs. Main Customs Office, Frankfurt a.M. Airport”. Well, of course it did! “Free Art” was my customs declaration! Duh!!

• Still, it seems that customs took its’ due, since part of the record is missing.

I forgot to ask Princess Ida whether the postcard had been wrapped by either mail service in the classic “we’re sorry, but we think we might have damaged your mail”. (German Mail bureaucrats created a special word for this: “Nachverpackung”). Not that she would have known;-)

Airmail Bunny

About to weeks ago on my way to work I discovered an unsual passenger in a bike basket in the bike parking lot of the Center for Neuroscience in Freiburg:

A (presumable) papier mâché bunny covered in air mail envelopes and stickers. “Kunst öffnet die Augen” (Art opens the eyes) was written on the bikes’ saddle:

Air Mail Bunny at Neurozentrum Freiburg

 

"Kunst öffnet die Augen" and my note.

I loved it, but I’m a sucker for those little badges they have in museums giving details about the artwork. Which there wasn’t. So I left a note with all kinds of questions on it,  my domain and my email address.

That same day I received an email from the artist (I forgot to ask whether I’m allowed to mention her name, so for the time being I won’t) telling me that she was not going to answer my questions but that I was free to blog about the bunny. And that she liked my blog;-) She also wrote that the bunny was going to change from time to time.

A couple of days later a couple of GDR stamps and two eggs had been added to the bunny. The artist then told me I should write my address on the bunny and she’d ship it to me. After that, other people started writing stuff on the saddle, but not on the bunny itself. I hope nobody got the idea that it was my art. I love the bunny, but I don’t want to take credit for other peoples’ work.

The week after, all that remained was the bike and the eggs:

All that remained on Jan. 18th were the bike and the eggs.

I had kept contact with the artist and she had been telling me the usual tales of trying to ship non-rectangular big things by mail. Apparently, she tried the regular postoffice, the Packstation, some hinterland-postoffice up in the Black Forest, but in the end I guess she compromised, because shortly after I received a note telling me that I had mail which I had to come pick up at my local post office.

I went there yesterday and to the great amusement of everybody present one of the workers produced, with a huge grin on his face, this:

Airmail Bunny, imprisoned

Back of the Airmail Bunnys cage;-)

THANK YOU! I love it! It lives in our living room now. Still caged, though. I like the cage;-)

Hier werden Schamhaare gekauft!

Während der Museumsnacht in Basel lief ich zufällig am dock in der Klybeckstrasse vorbei und enteckte dies im Schaufenster:

Ich vermtue, das gehört zu dem daneben im Schaufenster klebenden Text, der an sich schon das Kunstwerk sein soll (nummeriert und signiert vom Künstler), allerdings ist dieser Text in Bezug auf die Schaufensteraufschrift nicht sonderlich aufschlussreich. Den Text, der zu dieser Arbeit von Jan-Hendrik Pelz dazu im Schaufenster hing gibts leider nicht online. Ich hab nur ein mittelmäßiges Foto und bin zu faul es abzutippen:

iPhone to Postcard-Apps: Goodbye Corel

A couple of months ago I downloaded about 15 different Apps which let the user import or take pictures, create a postcard, put an address on it and the company behind the app prints and actually sends the postcard by snailmail.

The apps are all more or less the same: An “import” Module, sometimes the most basic crop tools, a panel for the address label and the greeting, sometimes a function to read geolocation from EXIF of the picture used and print it on the card and sometimes even a tracking tab. Not that any of the providers would actually provide tracking numbers, but a tab to keep track of which and how many postcards one has sent.

Pricing for international cards varied between USD 0.99 (Corel),  € 2.25 (Deutsche Post Funtastic) and USD 4 (Snapshotpostcards). Since almost none of the Listings in the App-Store list their pricing scheme ight in the Apps description on the App store, or sometimes not even on their website (if they had any), I had to download a whole bunch of Apps, create a lot of user accounts and dig through in-app legalese and FAQs to find out what pricing schemes and payment mechanisms actually were.

In the end I stuck with the Corel-Postcard App for the following reasons:

• they were among the cheapest with USD 0.99 per international postcard
• the App was clean and tidy
• I could pay per postcard, instead of buying a bunch of credits which I then would forget to use.

The disadvantages were:

• Absolutely NO Channel of communications with Corel. No way whatsoever to reach them. Althoug they list a website and an e-mail address. The Website forwards to the iTunes-Store, the email address is dead.
• Awfully long deliveries of up to 6 weeks.

Of course, other Apps have better service, but as mentioned previously, service comes at a price. Sincerely, for example, offers a whole bunch of different apps (Postagram, Popbooth, Dotti) , and on their website you can track postcards and re-order postcards which got lost or were damaged on the way. Snapshot does the same, but both are a lot more expensive than Corel. I tried both, had postcards send through both, the postcards got lost, I had them re-sent, yet still they got lost. Therefor, so far, I prefer Corels’ reliability over the at least twice as pricey customer assistance.

Anyway, I started writing this because Sunday evening I tried using the Corel App to send a Postcard but it refused to accept my Master Card, which I had previously used. I tried two different credit cards, none worked, so I gave up. Yesterday I received the following email from Corel:

Dear Corel Postcard user,

Thank you for using Corel Postcard. Unfortunately, we have decided to retire this app, but we’d like to offer you 10 free postcards in thanks and appreciation for your loyalty.

To access your 10 free postcards, please be sure to place your order before February 24th, 2012. Your account has already been credited with 10 free postcards, no promo code required.

Thanks again for being a customer!

The Corel Postcard Team

Their iTunes-Store website is offline already;-( Yet I’m busy using up my 10 credits. Well, thank you Corel.  I liked your app. I was perfectly willing to pay a dollar for a Postcard that took 6 weeks to arrive. Too bad you’re retiring. Farewell.

 

Here’s some pictures of the app and some of the postcards I sent:

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Free Mail Proxy

Clicking around the online banking interface of my US-based checking account in October,  I  discovered a service called “Online Bill Pay“. It is intended to be some kind of giro transfer.  For those who don’t know it, this is how it works:

The customer (me) enters the routing number of the recipient, adds a subject, the amount and gives the transaction a name. So far, so good, almost identical to the giro transfer I am used to doing with my European accounts. Here is where it gets interesting, though: In case the customer does not have the recipient’s  account and routing number, he may instead use his or her mailing address. The bank then prints and mails a paper check, free of charge for either party. It takes about a week to arrive.

When i discovered this service I started toying around with it. First thing I did was to send Molly one Cent:

Afterwards, I sent more of them to almost everybody whose US address I happened to have. Molly never cashed the check, though. So a couple of days ago I received an email from the bank telling me that they were returning the Cent to me since the check hadn’t been cashed:

Payee (Payee Nickname): Molly
Payment Amount: $0.01
Payment Send On Date: 10/11/2011

If you did not place a stop payment request on this item, there are several possible reasons for the credit:

- Is your payee account name and number correct?
- Is the mailing address entered for this payee correct?
- Was the payment made over 90 days ago? (Checks not cashed within 90 days are automatically credited back to your account.)
- Has your account with the payee been closed or does it have a credit balance?

Before scheduling additional payments to this payee, you may want to match the information entered on your payee list with your most recent statement from this payee and make any necessary corrections.  Or contact your payee for the specific reason for this returned payment.

Please select “Contact Us” from the top of any Bill Pay screen to send us an email if you have any questions or need further assistance. Or, you may call one of our Bill Pay Specialists anytime at 1-800-956-4442.

Sincerely,
Wells Fargo
Bill Pay Customer Service

Effectively, this means that I got so send her a letter for free. The amount of content is limited to one line. In this first check I hadn’t figured out how to write content into it yet, though. Here’s another one I sent to Scott.

Another one was altered and then returned to me by the stickerdude:

All in all, I must say that I really liked this feature;-) I wish German bank had this, too;-)

 

Butter for Norway!

On Dec. 13th I stumbled upon an article on NPR’s  Planet Money  (one of my favorite Podcasts) reporting that Norway had run out of butter.

This sounded all too crazy to be true. Had it been April, I would’ve dismissed the whole thing as a nice Fools Day hoax. But searching around, I found a whole bunch of other media reporting the same story.

I had previously toyed with dry ice and with sending dry ice packaged things via domestic mail, so I decided to send one pack of butter (In Germany usually packaged in blocks of 250g) to Norway. Since I do’t know anybody in Norway I decided to send it to the Ministry of Trade (in retrospect I should have sent to to the Ministry of Agriculture…).

Unfortunately DHL told me that dry ice is considered a dangerous substance and shipping it through customs would be outrageously expensive and nearly impossible. Therefore I used cooling blocks, which Christian donated to me (Thanx again!).

The butter was shipped Dec 21st. I haven’t heard back from the Ministry yet.

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I guess Daniele is going to complain again about packaging mail art, but I think molten butter would have been too disgusting for the poor mail carriers in between. I would have tried that with frozen butter on expedited domestic shipping, but not in international mail guaranteed to get stuck in customs.

Geldpost: Korruptionstest

Daniele hat ja schon vor langem drüber geschrieben, aber ich kam bisher nicht dazu. Ich hole das jetzt mal schnell nach:

Letztes Jahr war ich in Budapes. In Wien entdeckte ich dann noch einen übriggebliebenen 500-Forint Schein in meinem Geldbeutel. Da ich mich sowieso schon seit längerem mit Geldscheinen und Mail-Art beschäftigte wurde also eine Postkarte draus. Drauf steht “Korruptionstest”. Aber welcher österreichische oder deutsche Postangestellte würde schon 500 Forint klauen? Das waren damals nicht mal 2 Euro.

Übrigens wurde der Test erfolgreich bestanden;-)

 

Liebes Freiburger Scherbentelefon

Liebes Scherbentelefon,

ich finde es super, dass es dich gibt! Ich finde du solltest viel mehr genutzt werden.  Allein dieses Jahr musste ich schon 4mal meinen Reifen flicken weil ich  auf öff. Radwegen im Stadtgebiet dummerweise durch Scherben gefahren war.
Und deswegen hier eine Idee:

Irgendwann vor einiger Zeit habe ich in den Amtl. Mitteilungen gelesen, dass du die Scherben oft nicht findest, weil die Angaben nicht akkurat genug sind. Die  meisten Smartphones haben nicht nur eine halbwegs akzeptable Kamera, sondern auch GPS. Viele dieser Kameras schreiben die GPS-Koordinaten in die Metadaten der Bilder. Die Metadaten mit Programmen wie IrfanViewo oder Google Earth auch relativ einfach auszulesen.
Wie wäre es also, wenn du die fahrradfahrenden Freiburger SmartphonebesitzerInnen darüber informierst, dass du dich besonders über Bilder von Scherben freust? Vielleicht musst du sie dann darauf hinweisen, dass du die EFIX-Daten auch ausliest, wie die rechtliche Situation hierbei ist kannst du sicher leichter rausfinden als ich.

Ach, und übrigens: Wie wäre es mit kleinen Aufklebern à la
“Freiburger Scherbentelefon. Falls du auf diesem Ragweg Scherben
siehst freuen wir uns über eine kurze Mitteilung // ein Bild Foto der
Scherben per Mail an : 0761/7670770 oder
info@abfallwirtschaft-freiburg.de“
an den Fahrradwegen?

Viele Grüße

Robin

Postgeschichten

Gestern war ich also bei der Post, einerseits um B.’s Brief noch einmal loszuschicken, andererseits um 70ct – Marken zu kaufen. Wieso 70Ct? Nun, weil sich relativ häufig meine Postkarten billiger als 50g-und-70ct-Warensendungen denn als 90ct Kompaktbrief verschicken lassen.

Bezüglich B.’s Brief war alles genau so wie ich vermutet hatte. Die Postangestellte (was ist denn nun der korrekte Titel, Daniele, du weißt das doch sicher, denn Beamte sind sie ja meist keine mehr) war sich nicht so sicher, vermutete aber auch, dass das Briefsortierzentrum “To” und “From” verwechselt hatte, erstattete mir das Porto, beschwerte sich noch, dass man ja den Vermerk “Warensendung” nicht lesen könne weil er zu klein sei, ich solle ihn in RIESIG GROß UND FETT SCHRÄG IRGENDWO HINSCHREIBEN.

Dabei war meine “Verpackung” ausnahmsweise mal vollkommen regularienkonform, denn dort heisst es, die Büchersendung müsse “die Aufschrift “Büchersendung” oberhalb der Anschrift tragen“.

70ct-Briefmarke. Quelle: Deutsche Post

Und nun zu den 70ct-Briefmarken:

Wie schon erwähnt sind die super für bis zu 50g-Warensendungen. Ich wollte gestern welche kaufen und die gibts nicht mehr! “Brauchen wir nicht.” sagte die Person hinter der Kasse.

“Ja und was ist mit den Warensendungen?” sagte ich

“Sie können ja ne 65er und ne 5er kaufen, oder welche am Automaten drucken” sagte sie.

“Das find ich doof,” sagte ich.

“Wir nicht.” antwortete sie “da müssen wir weniger unterschiedliche Briefmarken vorrätig haben.”

So ein Mist. Da werden also klammheimlihc die Briefmarken wegrationalisiert. Ob es für die Post wirklihc billiger ist sich dauernd mit abgefallenen Briefmarken aus dem Automaten rumzuschlagen (die kleben nämlich überhaupt nicht), oder dem Aufwand, immer 65+5 addieren zu müssen?

Aber im Onlineshop gibts 70er noch. Ich hab gleich mal ne Menge auf Vorrat bestellt. Und wenn die aus sind nehm ich halt welche aus dem Automaten und klebe sie mit Tesa. Und dann soll mir bloss keiner kommen und sich beschweren, dass man auf Tesa nicht stempeln kann.

Englischkurse für Briefsortiermaschinen!

Am 21.11. hab ich B. gleichzeitig eine “Postkarte” und den folgenden Briefumschlag verwendet. Weil ich den Briefumschlag recycelte musste ich das den ursprünglichen Aufkleber überkleben, und das tat ich mit USPS Priority Mail Labels, denn davon hatte ich noch einige übrig.

Wunderschön Normkonform kam die Adresse der Empfängerin in das mit “TO” beschriftete Feld und vom für die Absenderadresse vorgesehenen Feld “FROM” hab ich extra einen Pfeil zu meiner Adresse gemacht.

Und mit einer Brieflaufzeit von 4 Tagen und kommentarlos landete der Umschlag heute wieder etwas ramponierter in meinem Briefkasten. Hätte tatsächlich ein Zustellungsversuch in der Schweiz stattgefunden wäre der Umschlag voll mit “Unzustellbar”-Aufklebern.

Da kannte wohl wer die Bedeutung von “To” und “From” nicht?

Die “Postkarte” kam übrigens schon längst in der Schweiz an.