The Vancouver Main Post Office looks big enough to handle even a moderate crowd of Olympic postmark hunters.
OK, perhaps that’s a slight overstatement. But when I received the schedule for applying postmarks at the 5 post offices in Vancouver and Whistler it was clear that more than a salvo or two would be fired over Canada Post’s bow.
In an effort to make the work of the postal clerks easier, as well as help keep track of the postmarking devices, Canada Post decided to offer only certain postmarks each day at each post office. The only exception is the post office at Richmond which has only one cancel — Speed Skating.
Certainly for the Vancouver Main Post Office which, after all, is providing all 24 Olympic postmarks, this might be understandable. Yet the method for selecting which postmarks would be offered each day was made completely independent of the actual event schedule. Only 27 events of a possible 100 occurring Monday-Saturday (the post office is closed on Sundays) could be commemorated by a postmark! Worse still, 4 sports events — freestyle ski cross, Nordic combined, and two of the three snowboard events — have not one single postmark available on an event day from the Vancouver Main PO.
You won't find this postmark from Vancouver's Main PO used on the day of an event.
I already envision the following scenario: the proud parents of a snowboard rider who has just completed a successful competition in the snowboard cross event stroll into the post office to mail celebratory postcards home to friends and family only to discover the snowboard postmark is available only once every four days — and this isn’t one of them. Can you spell B-E-D-L-A-M?
And then of course the flip side of this record is when (not if) one or more postmarks are available on a day when they are not scheduled. Pity the poor postal clerk who’s responsible for that gaff.
As I said, I can understand why Canada Post was inclined to limit the number of cancels available at the Vancouver Main PO on any given day, but why limit the numbers at the other two post offices in Vancouver (which have only 6 postmarks apiece) and the one at Whistler (11)? Surely the postal clerks can handle the trickle of customers even if all allotted postmarks were available each day.
My advice? If Canada Post is concerned that they might be overwhelmed at the Vancouver Main PO, why not do what the US Postal Service did at the Salt Lake City Olympic Games in 2002: create a roped-off bull pen where collectors and visitors alike can obtain their cancels either with the help of a clerk or sitting at a table and doing their own.
Believe me, you’ll have far less headaches if you make ALL postmarks available each day rather than having to explain to visitors from the other side of the globe why a certain postmark isn’t available.
I’m afraid I’ve perhaps been a bit hasty in condemning Canada Post for their rather suspect overprinting of the 3 Vancouver Olympic Games souvenir sheets and (ostensibly) selling them only as a part of three very expensive coin sets. In a long conversation earlier today with a senior official at Canada Post, I learned that, in fact, the plan is to package all three overprinted souvenir sheets in a glassine envelope and sell them at face value. Now of course it remains to be seen whether or not this really occurs since at least one — and perhaps two — of the coin sets are now sold out. Unless a stock of overprinted souvenir sheets has been held back, Canada Post would have to overprint more stock. Only time will tell what the outcome will be. Stayed tuned to this blog as I’ll let you know when I hear something!
My name is Mark Maestrone. In addition to being president of 