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United States/Covers & Postmarks : Ooops! I've done it again!

 

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BenFranklin1902
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Tom in Exton, PA

11 Mar 2019
09:44:08pm
Yes! I did another postal road rally!

I attended a breakfast meeting in Plainsboro, New Jersey last Wednesday, and I knew I had the rest of the day to myself. So why not go exploring for postmarks? I left Plainsboro around 9am and as per my usual practice for my pre-planned routes, I took main roads to my furthest point and wandered back across the state. In this case I took Interstate 295 to the Atlantic City Expressway to the Garden State Parkway both East and then South to the town of Marmora. This is the point where I stopped my last crawl when I was on vacation in Wildwood Crest last summer.

Image Not Found

Image Not Found

I made it to Marmora by 10:30am. It was a pleasant modern post office and I quickly achieved my post mark without any objections.

That set me on the road to Ocean City. I have the regular Ocean City postmark, but on my last trip I had wanted to make my last stop the Ocean City Contract Post Office (CPU). I wasn't sure if this was in a pharmacy or other store like many of them are. I arrived there by 11:00am and discovered I was lucky that I did. I hadn't checked the store hours but it closed at noon on weekdays. In retrospect, if I had made it to the building in July, it would have been closed anyway!

Image Not FoundImage Not Found

What's really cool is that "Contract Postal Unit" is spelled out. The office was run by a young fellow in one of the municipal buildings. Since this is the New Jersey shore where going to the beach isn't free, this is where you would buy your beach tags.

The cancel device wasn't in the greatest shape and was heavily overinked. The fellow was helpful and we stamped it a number of times on paper to clean it up a bit. Still, the date isn't legible but what the heck. It's gotta be a rarely seen cancel!

Image Not Found

And some bonus material! Of course a town named "Ocean City" would be right on the beach. This is the pavillion building on the boardwalk.

Image Not Found

And with it being one of the old shore towns with a lot of history, here's a postmark from 1891.

That does leave the question that the cancel is marked "Station 3". My friend has a summer condo in Ocean City, and he knows of the post office he has visited, but is there a Station 2? I think it's worth a trip there to research it!

Image Not FoundImage Not Found
Heading up the coast, we came to the town of Longport and this quaint little post office. With no outside signage, the nice lady clerk said people are always complaining that they can't find the post office. I offered that the postal truck outside was a dead giveaway. That got her to smile and give me nice postmarks!

Image Not Found

Between Longport and Margate City, I was following the WAZE program and missed a real opportunity! I was literally a block away from Lucy! I have always wanted to see this historical site, but have never been there. Nutz! Well a reason to go back there someday! Lucy was originally built as the attention getter for a hotel, as on this 1917 postcard. Eventually the hotel went away and Lucy remained as a historical landmark.



Image Not Found
Image Not Found

Next stop on our way to Atlantic City was Margate City. The post office here was typical USPS architecture of the 1960s along with an ADA update of a wheelchair ramp. Parking was on the street but not a problem at all on an off season Wednesday. Now what was interesting is that the lady at the counter said she remembered me from my postal trip last summer! She said she works at different post offices and remembered meeting me in Cape May County back in July! Of course she gave me my postmark! I'm a minor celebrity!

Image Not Found

Onward we went along the coast northward! The post office was billed as "Ventnor City" on the USPS site, but as you can see the postmark is just "Ventnor".
Image Not Found

The post office is a hastily built storefront in what appears to be a fairly new shopping center. About a block up the road was a typical 1960s USPS building I nearly pulled into before I noticed it was now a doctor's office. I asked the clerk and she admitted to being newly planted into this office so she didn't know this history, nor why the postmark was just "Ventnor". In fact when I mentioned it, she appeared puzzled as if she might not have yet noticed. Still, she was fine with giving me my postmarks and I went on my way.

Image Not Found

Still on the shopping center property was this photo opportunity of a former lifeguard boat, now a planter, proclaiming "Ventnor City", with a nice view of the bay.

Image Not FoundImage Not Found

Since we have multiple examples of the Atlantic City postmark, I declined to seek out the main post office. But being only blocks away from the Atlantic City Carrier Annex, I had to stop. There was a customer service window, but as you can see the postmark was generic "Atlantic City". I'm thinking that the -9998 extension on the postmark distinguishes this station, so I'm adding it to the collection as a type.

Image Not Found

Atlantic City is a mixed thing in New Jersey. Gambling was approved in NJ in the 1970s as it would bring economic prosperity to the city that had settled into a depressing state. With other resort towns closer to major cities, and many vacationers taking air travel to exotic destinations, AC was no longer attractive. But sadly, the development became a string of huge hotel casinos along the waterfront. The patrons never ventured any further than the hotel boundaries, leaving the economic dispair beyond their footprint. AC is still pretty much a ghetto. Sad.

Image Not Found

Here's one of the old firehouses still in service. I'd love to wander around more and see the sites of Atlantic City past, but postmarks are calling me....

Image Not Found Image Not Found

Just north of Atlantic city is the town of Pomona. Another post office in a shopping center, and another easy postmark.

Image Not Found

Our next stop was the Pleasantville Carrier Annex, aka "Jersey Shore Carrier Annex". This facility had a big sign stating that there were no consumer services there, and had a fence around it. So I left. We'll never know if it has a unique postmark.

Image Not Found

We headed inland at this point and our next destination was Cologne, New Jersey. Cologne is a German name and I was getting excited as I noticed roads with German names, and a German restaurant. Unfortunately again, I didn't look up the hours of operation and it was closed for lunch between 2pm and 2:30. Of course I arrived minutes after it closed! I noticed the Renault Winery was a few blocks away and the Bulldog Tavern also will require further investigation in the future. So we will return!

Image Not Found

The next post office heading west was Rosenhayn, New Jersey. The building was a typical brick USPS building so I didn't take a photo. As the town name implied flowers, I used one of my USPS stationary postcard with orchards on it. The lady smiled when I asked for a postmark and mentioned this.

Image Not FoundImage Not Found

My favorite stop of the day was Estell Manor, New Jersey. A small town office in an architecturally interesting old house, the staff was also very friendly. I love the little towns with friendly names and this stop lived up to the promise. The two workers inside, an older lady and a young black man with dread locks made me feel welcome and were interested in my quest. When I travel I bring along one of my ten volumes of my NJ collection and this was the stop where I went back to the car and brought it in for them to view. They enjoyed the visit as much as I did.

It took a bit of patience to get the photo of the post office. Regular patrons were accustomed to pulling up across the front of the building, blocking any decent picture! I waited a bit and caught it between patrons.



Image Not FoundImage Not Found



My stop in Buena was equally as friendly. A very well dressed older man had on a nice vest and tie over his USPS shirt. He explained that the town name was pronounced "BUena" like Buick, rather than like Buena, Spanish for good!

We talked a bit about the New Jersey Talk Radio regular feature about pronunciations of town names, and then other customers came in so I let him get back to work. At this point it was 4:20pm. I checked my list and a few target post offices that all seemed to close at 4:30 and were more than ten minutes away. I decided I did well enough and headed back towards home.


Image Not Found
Image Not Found

I noticed that I would be passing through Glassboro, a town very familiar to me as the home of Rowan University, a college my daughter graduated from. I found it interesting that I spent four years and $100,000 in that town and didn't even have the postmark. I checked, and the post office was open until 5:00pm. Yea, we were up to one more stop!

The clerk was an older gentleman who took interest in my mission. He proclaimed it a great hobby and was honored to give me a postmark!

So we headed home at that point. We made 13 stops and were successful in obtaining 11 new postmarks for the collection. What was interesting was that I got zero resistance to my quest! Only one clerk asked why I wanted a postmark and once explained was happy to comply. I didn't pull out the postal regulations even once! It was a very good day indeed!

And I'm already planning the next route!

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auldstampguy
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Tim
Collector, Webmaster

12 Mar 2019
07:08:49pm
re: Ooops! I've done it again!

Tom,
Thanks for the post. You have inspired me. One of the things that I collect is cancels from Minnesota post offices. I'm sure that there are many active post offices in Minnesota that I don't have in my collection. As I'm moving towards retirement I'm sure road trips like you have documented would be a lot of fun for my wife and I.

Regards ... Tim.

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"Isaac Asimov once said if his doctor told him he was dying, he wouldn’t lament, he would just type a little faster. "

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BenFranklin1902
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Tom in Exton, PA

13 Mar 2019
11:24:02pm
re: Ooops! I've done it again!

Thanks Tim!

It's fun to plan out the route, and even more fun to go on the run! I have non-collector friends of mine volunteering to co-pilot. I'm not retired, but I do a run whenever I can.

With all of today's mail being cancelled regionally, visiting the offices is the only hope you have of getting postmarks from some of the smaller offices. And they go out of business too! So get them while they're still there!

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musicman
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APS #213005

14 Mar 2019
10:09:02pm
re: Ooops! I've done it again!

I thoroughly enjoy these treks of yours!

So much so that I have started collecting my own town postmarks in my travels as well!

You inspired me!

I salute you, my stampin' friend.

(...now why can't I find that saluting emoji....)



Winking

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2 Members
like this post.
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Author/Postings
Members Picture
BenFranklin1902

Tom in Exton, PA
11 Mar 2019
09:44:08pm

Yes! I did another postal road rally!

I attended a breakfast meeting in Plainsboro, New Jersey last Wednesday, and I knew I had the rest of the day to myself. So why not go exploring for postmarks? I left Plainsboro around 9am and as per my usual practice for my pre-planned routes, I took main roads to my furthest point and wandered back across the state. In this case I took Interstate 295 to the Atlantic City Expressway to the Garden State Parkway both East and then South to the town of Marmora. This is the point where I stopped my last crawl when I was on vacation in Wildwood Crest last summer.

Image Not Found

Image Not Found

I made it to Marmora by 10:30am. It was a pleasant modern post office and I quickly achieved my post mark without any objections.

That set me on the road to Ocean City. I have the regular Ocean City postmark, but on my last trip I had wanted to make my last stop the Ocean City Contract Post Office (CPU). I wasn't sure if this was in a pharmacy or other store like many of them are. I arrived there by 11:00am and discovered I was lucky that I did. I hadn't checked the store hours but it closed at noon on weekdays. In retrospect, if I had made it to the building in July, it would have been closed anyway!

Image Not FoundImage Not Found

What's really cool is that "Contract Postal Unit" is spelled out. The office was run by a young fellow in one of the municipal buildings. Since this is the New Jersey shore where going to the beach isn't free, this is where you would buy your beach tags.

The cancel device wasn't in the greatest shape and was heavily overinked. The fellow was helpful and we stamped it a number of times on paper to clean it up a bit. Still, the date isn't legible but what the heck. It's gotta be a rarely seen cancel!

Image Not Found

And some bonus material! Of course a town named "Ocean City" would be right on the beach. This is the pavillion building on the boardwalk.

Image Not Found

And with it being one of the old shore towns with a lot of history, here's a postmark from 1891.

That does leave the question that the cancel is marked "Station 3". My friend has a summer condo in Ocean City, and he knows of the post office he has visited, but is there a Station 2? I think it's worth a trip there to research it!

Image Not FoundImage Not Found
Heading up the coast, we came to the town of Longport and this quaint little post office. With no outside signage, the nice lady clerk said people are always complaining that they can't find the post office. I offered that the postal truck outside was a dead giveaway. That got her to smile and give me nice postmarks!

Image Not Found

Between Longport and Margate City, I was following the WAZE program and missed a real opportunity! I was literally a block away from Lucy! I have always wanted to see this historical site, but have never been there. Nutz! Well a reason to go back there someday! Lucy was originally built as the attention getter for a hotel, as on this 1917 postcard. Eventually the hotel went away and Lucy remained as a historical landmark.



Image Not Found
Image Not Found

Next stop on our way to Atlantic City was Margate City. The post office here was typical USPS architecture of the 1960s along with an ADA update of a wheelchair ramp. Parking was on the street but not a problem at all on an off season Wednesday. Now what was interesting is that the lady at the counter said she remembered me from my postal trip last summer! She said she works at different post offices and remembered meeting me in Cape May County back in July! Of course she gave me my postmark! I'm a minor celebrity!

Image Not Found

Onward we went along the coast northward! The post office was billed as "Ventnor City" on the USPS site, but as you can see the postmark is just "Ventnor".
Image Not Found

The post office is a hastily built storefront in what appears to be a fairly new shopping center. About a block up the road was a typical 1960s USPS building I nearly pulled into before I noticed it was now a doctor's office. I asked the clerk and she admitted to being newly planted into this office so she didn't know this history, nor why the postmark was just "Ventnor". In fact when I mentioned it, she appeared puzzled as if she might not have yet noticed. Still, she was fine with giving me my postmarks and I went on my way.

Image Not Found

Still on the shopping center property was this photo opportunity of a former lifeguard boat, now a planter, proclaiming "Ventnor City", with a nice view of the bay.

Image Not FoundImage Not Found

Since we have multiple examples of the Atlantic City postmark, I declined to seek out the main post office. But being only blocks away from the Atlantic City Carrier Annex, I had to stop. There was a customer service window, but as you can see the postmark was generic "Atlantic City". I'm thinking that the -9998 extension on the postmark distinguishes this station, so I'm adding it to the collection as a type.

Image Not Found

Atlantic City is a mixed thing in New Jersey. Gambling was approved in NJ in the 1970s as it would bring economic prosperity to the city that had settled into a depressing state. With other resort towns closer to major cities, and many vacationers taking air travel to exotic destinations, AC was no longer attractive. But sadly, the development became a string of huge hotel casinos along the waterfront. The patrons never ventured any further than the hotel boundaries, leaving the economic dispair beyond their footprint. AC is still pretty much a ghetto. Sad.

Image Not Found

Here's one of the old firehouses still in service. I'd love to wander around more and see the sites of Atlantic City past, but postmarks are calling me....

Image Not Found Image Not Found

Just north of Atlantic city is the town of Pomona. Another post office in a shopping center, and another easy postmark.

Image Not Found

Our next stop was the Pleasantville Carrier Annex, aka "Jersey Shore Carrier Annex". This facility had a big sign stating that there were no consumer services there, and had a fence around it. So I left. We'll never know if it has a unique postmark.

Image Not Found

We headed inland at this point and our next destination was Cologne, New Jersey. Cologne is a German name and I was getting excited as I noticed roads with German names, and a German restaurant. Unfortunately again, I didn't look up the hours of operation and it was closed for lunch between 2pm and 2:30. Of course I arrived minutes after it closed! I noticed the Renault Winery was a few blocks away and the Bulldog Tavern also will require further investigation in the future. So we will return!

Image Not Found

The next post office heading west was Rosenhayn, New Jersey. The building was a typical brick USPS building so I didn't take a photo. As the town name implied flowers, I used one of my USPS stationary postcard with orchards on it. The lady smiled when I asked for a postmark and mentioned this.

Image Not FoundImage Not Found

My favorite stop of the day was Estell Manor, New Jersey. A small town office in an architecturally interesting old house, the staff was also very friendly. I love the little towns with friendly names and this stop lived up to the promise. The two workers inside, an older lady and a young black man with dread locks made me feel welcome and were interested in my quest. When I travel I bring along one of my ten volumes of my NJ collection and this was the stop where I went back to the car and brought it in for them to view. They enjoyed the visit as much as I did.

It took a bit of patience to get the photo of the post office. Regular patrons were accustomed to pulling up across the front of the building, blocking any decent picture! I waited a bit and caught it between patrons.



Image Not FoundImage Not Found



My stop in Buena was equally as friendly. A very well dressed older man had on a nice vest and tie over his USPS shirt. He explained that the town name was pronounced "BUena" like Buick, rather than like Buena, Spanish for good!

We talked a bit about the New Jersey Talk Radio regular feature about pronunciations of town names, and then other customers came in so I let him get back to work. At this point it was 4:20pm. I checked my list and a few target post offices that all seemed to close at 4:30 and were more than ten minutes away. I decided I did well enough and headed back towards home.


Image Not Found
Image Not Found

I noticed that I would be passing through Glassboro, a town very familiar to me as the home of Rowan University, a college my daughter graduated from. I found it interesting that I spent four years and $100,000 in that town and didn't even have the postmark. I checked, and the post office was open until 5:00pm. Yea, we were up to one more stop!

The clerk was an older gentleman who took interest in my mission. He proclaimed it a great hobby and was honored to give me a postmark!

So we headed home at that point. We made 13 stops and were successful in obtaining 11 new postmarks for the collection. What was interesting was that I got zero resistance to my quest! Only one clerk asked why I wanted a postmark and once explained was happy to comply. I didn't pull out the postal regulations even once! It was a very good day indeed!

And I'm already planning the next route!

Like 
9 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.

"Check out my eBay Stuff! Username Turtles-Trading-Post"
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auldstampguy

Tim
Collector, Webmaster
12 Mar 2019
07:08:49pm

re: Ooops! I've done it again!

Tom,
Thanks for the post. You have inspired me. One of the things that I collect is cancels from Minnesota post offices. I'm sure that there are many active post offices in Minnesota that I don't have in my collection. As I'm moving towards retirement I'm sure road trips like you have documented would be a lot of fun for my wife and I.

Regards ... Tim.

Like
Login to Like
this post

"Isaac Asimov once said if his doctor told him he was dying, he wouldn’t lament, he would just type a little faster. "

mncancels.org
Members Picture
BenFranklin1902

Tom in Exton, PA
13 Mar 2019
11:24:02pm

re: Ooops! I've done it again!

Thanks Tim!

It's fun to plan out the route, and even more fun to go on the run! I have non-collector friends of mine volunteering to co-pilot. I'm not retired, but I do a run whenever I can.

With all of today's mail being cancelled regionally, visiting the offices is the only hope you have of getting postmarks from some of the smaller offices. And they go out of business too! So get them while they're still there!

Like
Login to Like
this post

"Check out my eBay Stuff! Username Turtles-Trading-Post"
Members Picture
musicman

APS #213005
14 Mar 2019
10:09:02pm

re: Ooops! I've done it again!

I thoroughly enjoy these treks of yours!

So much so that I have started collecting my own town postmarks in my travels as well!

You inspired me!

I salute you, my stampin' friend.

(...now why can't I find that saluting emoji....)



Winking

Like 
2 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
        

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