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Oceania/Australia : Full story of the NPB Theft

 

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Rob1956
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My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland

05 Nov 2019
12:53:41am
Sometime between 1942 and 1947, sheets of printer waste was destined to be destroyed in the furnace, except for the personal interest of a philatelist and employee of the Printing Branch whose job it was to dispose of the imperfect stamps.

He didn’t, and somehow squirrelled away hundreds of sheets of stamps; of course the theft of the sheets would have taken some time, and to be undetected he replaced the faulty stamps meant to be destroyed with sheets of stamps ready for distribution.

The man at the centre of the theft was John George Patrick Martin of Beach Road, Sandringham. The defective stamps were sheets of the 2½d George VI (including the 2½d tête-bêche, of which less than 10 exist). A MLH tête-bêche pair was recently sold for $12,500.

Image Not Found
Imperforate 2½d George VI

Also in the haul were the 2½d Sir Thomas Mitchell., 2½d Newcastle., 4d Koala., 6d Kookaburra., 9d Platypus., 1/- Lyrebird., and the 1/6 airmail. Not mentioned through the media at the time, were SPECIMEN overprints of the Coronation £1 which had been defaced by black ink; these are believed to be rejected stock which was among the material stamps illicitly removed from the Note Printing Branch.

Image Not Found Image Not Found
Peace Commemorative with no watermark

He also had 16 sheets of “trial run” Peace Commemorative stamps, fifteen of the sheets contained 180 stamps and the other sheet was incomplete.

Before the theft was noticed, John Martin had already off-loaded many of the sheets to stamp dealers.

The president of the Stamp Dealers’ Association of Australia (Mr Frank Thornbill) said that he had bought several hundred Peace stamps from Martin at £5 each. Their lack of a watermark and printing errors made the stamp worth £5 each to philatelists. He said that the owner of the stamps told him that many of the stamps had been sent overseas.

This major security breach was such an embarrassment to the Post-Master General’s Department that the PMG's Department and the police made every effort to “hush up” the incident; their reason for doing so was to protect the developments in the investigation into the disappearance of the imperforate stamps from the Commonwealth Note and Stamp Printing Branch and to stop criticisms being made about the theft from philatelic journals abroad.

The London Journal of Stamp collecting which circulated in Britain. Australia, and America, said the authorities here are “extremely dilatory” in pressing the case to its conclusion.

The journal added “since the Post Office denies that there are any sheets short, the only possible explanation is that the imperforate sheets were removed and ordinary sheets substituted."

The Australian Stamp Monthly said that in an article headed “Scandal in the Commonwealth” that it agreed with dealers and philatelists that all the circumstances of the case should not be published.

One of the dangers of keeping such developments in the case being kept secret was that avenues for the thefts of note money and other material might be left open. Philatelists in Australia believed that the imperforate stamps on the market were probably taken from stock which was to have been pulped.

It was mentioned that stamp frauds in the Commonwealth note-printing office involving the theft of a quantity of imperfect stamps which have a high novelty value to collectors were discovered.

Announcing the theft to the media, the Postmaster-General (Mr Anthony) said the prosecution of a person suspected of the offence was now under consideration, and a decision would be made soon about the offender.

Revealing the frauds, Mr Anthony said the appearance on the market of faulty Australian stamps had led to an inquiry. A quantity of stamps which had been printed without the usual perforations, or which were otherwise imperfect, had been recovered from certain stamp dealers.

Inquiries by the postal investigation representative and the Victorian police had shown that these stamps had not been issued by the post office, but had been stolen from the Commonwealth note printing branch in 1947 or earlier.

The stamps were imperfect or spoils that should have been burnt. They had, in fact, been falsely certified to be burnt.

The Commonwealth Bank and the Post Office were much concerned about the discovery and would not hesitate to take legal proceedings if they were found to be justified, said Mr Anthony.
The Herald. Thurs April 13, 1950.

John Martin confronted the stipendiary magistrate Mr. Addison in the Melbourne city court committed for trial a man alleged to have stolen faulty, unused Australian postage stamps from the Commonwealth Note Printing Branch. He was eventually found guilty.
Adelaide News. Wed May 17, 1950

Of the hundreds of stamps Martin had stolen and the many types and face values involved, he was only charged for stealing the “trial run” Commemorative Peace stamps.

JURY ACQUITS ON STAMPS CHARGE

A verdict of not guilty was returned by a jury in General Sessions today, at the trial of John George Martin of Beach Road, Sandringham, a former employee of the Commonwealth Note Printing Branch, on a charge of having taken stamps from the branch’s burning room and having disposed of them.

The Crown case was that Martin had removed the stamps, which were known as “spoils” when they were being destroyed in the burning room.

The stamps, which were the 2½d Commemorative Peace stamps, had been printed on special “Chinese-finish paper” which bore no watermark and which was used experimentally in February 1946 to print the stamp.

In 1947 the stamps were taken for destruction to the furnace room where Martin was employed destroying old cheques.

In May 1950, the stamps, which in fact had never been destroyed, were produced by a philatelist to investigators of the PMG’s Department.

The Crown claimed that Martin had sold the stamps to the philatelist. In his defence Martin denied that he had taken the stamps or sold them, or delivered them to the philatelist.

He said he had no recollection of being in the burning room at the time the stamps were destroyed. Mr O. J. Gillard KC, with Mr P. Murphy, appeared for the Crown; and Mr T. Rapke, with Mr J. A. Lewis, instructed by Herbert and Geer, for Martin.
The Herald, Tues March 20, 1951

In one discussion outside of the SOR forum it was said that the thin paper £2 Coat-of-Arms were part of the printing branch thefts, this information is far from the truth. John Martin was dismissed from his job at the Note Printing Branch sometime in 1947-48; the hearing into the theft commenced in 1950 and the trial in 1951. All £2 Coats-of-Arm (including the thin paper) were printed in 1950-51, long after Martin’s dismissal from the Note Printing Branch.

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ikeyPikey
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05 Nov 2019
07:33:32am
re: Full story of the NPB Theft

'
Thank you, Rob, for putting that together.

There is something about Australian accounting practices that eludes me.

You've got a pile of good (and counted) printed stamps, and you've got a pile of printer's waste (whether counted, or not).

You've got a guy in The Burn Room expecting the pile of waste, but you send him good stamps, instead.

Q/ Are the good stamps not now missing from the pile of good stamps?

Q/ Why was this fellow only caught when the waste stamps surfaced on the market?

Q/ How did the shrinkage (the polite term for thefts from inventory) go undetected?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

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Rob1956
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My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland

05 Nov 2019
11:16:35am
re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi ikeyPikey

I would assume that John Martin would have taken advantage of the lack of man-power during the war and just after to be able to take the sheets. The security would not be adequate, and I don’t think that the printing department would have even thought that any of their staff could do such a thing.

When stamps are printed, the Note Printing Branch will always keep a batch in case there needs to be a resupply of the most commonly used stamp. He would have taken a few sheets from the stock room. And as there was no reason to suspect any member of the printing branch staff to pilfer stamps, especially of the volume that was taken, he would have gotten away with his little money making scheme if he did not sell them to Mr Thornbill who, as a good law-abiding citizen turned them over to the PMG Department, who then informed the police.

Of course this is only hypothetical, but it may have happened that way.

So to answer your questions.

Q. Are the good stamps not now missing from the pile of good stamps?
A. Yes. But it would not be taken from the batches ready for distribution as these stamps would be in full view of staff preparing the cut sheets for distribution, but from the reserve supply from the stock room.

Q. Why was this fellow only caught when the waste stamps surfaced on the market?
A. Mr. Thornbill had decided to inform the PMG's Department of the large quantity of imperforate stamps, otherwise he would have gotten away scot-free.

Q. How did the shrinkage (the polite term for thefts from inventory) go undetected?
A. Most likely a lack of security as a result of the war, coupled with the trust of the Printing Branch towards its employees during the war and just after.

Rob

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"Specialised Collector of Australian Pre-Decimal & Decimal Stamps"
Horamakhet
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05 Nov 2019
05:11:01pm
re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi Rob, and all others


Without naming persons, I know someone whose relation worked for the Post Office for over thirty years, and like many post office workers, he collected stamps.

He would check all the new stamps when they came in and if he noticed anything strange he would purchase the items, without informing his superiors. The rule in the fifties and sixties was if you noticed anything ab-normal about stamps that were for sale, they were to be removed and given to the boss, who theoretically would return them to the stamp printing authorities for destruction.

In practice this never happened, and he accumulated some interesting "varieties" as well as on selling to stamp dealers.

I would say that in the actual post offices, this would have been a standard practice
and probably still continues Australia wide today.

I suppose that it allowed for some otherwise unknown "varieties" to enter into the market.

Regards

Horamakhet.

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Rob1956
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My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland

05 Nov 2019
07:08:23pm
re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi Horamakhet

I can confirm such a thing does happen in Post Offices. I knew of a person who had a post office just recently who told me that he used to go through all the stamps in the shop and remove any errors and other varieties and place them into his collection. He gave me one which was an Olympic stamp without Tasmania at the bottom of the map. I'll find it today and upload the error.

Rob

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BenFranklin1902
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Tom in Exton, PA

07 Nov 2019
04:09:46pm
re: Full story of the NPB Theft

I took the story to mean that the person bought regular stamps from the post office and substituted those for the error stamps. That way there wouldn't have been any shortages in the bureau's stock.

I knew someone who worked for the United States Mint many years ago. Error coins were showing up in the marketplace. It was perplexing to the mint security as employees were scanned by metal detectors as they left. Investigation found that the employee in question was spending the error coins in the lunch room vending machines. A cohort with the vending company was taking them out.

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cdj1122
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..

30 Nov 2019
04:36:45am
re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Up to about fifty years ago, my wife's father and brother
worked for the Babylon Town dump ( on Long Island, in
New York State) and incinerator site. Each year the local
post office gathered certain unsold inventory that as not
likely to be sold or had been replaced by a new printing
or value.
Of course the postal officials accounted for these stamp
sheets that were to be destroyed by fire.
However the incinerator employees knew that this was usually
done in February and were on the lookout for the postal truck
to be in line. They prepared a water hose near the place where
the truck would back to the rim of the fire pit.
The dump did smell quite badly, the fumes were strong and the
weather was often wet and cold. As soon as the
bundles were tossed into the dump, the postal people got out
of there quickly.
As soon as they were out of immediate sight the hose was
sprinkled on the bundles of stamp sheets and they were
pulled out of the simmering fire. Once the bundles were
dried in a warm shed the outer strips that had become
charred were re-disposed of and the stamps left were divided up.
I recall seeing short sheets, roughly 9 x 9 of the 4½¢ stamps
being used by her brother well into the next year, as well
as other issues.
However, Madam Karma often strikes the unwary. Both of my
wife's family members were struck down by cancer, as were
several other workers, and their illness and deaths were
attributed to the chemical fumes they ingested at that facility.

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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
Rob1956
Members Picture


My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland

30 Nov 2019
06:15:10pm
re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi BenFranklin1902

"I took the story to mean that the person bought regular stamps from the post office and substituted those for the error stamps. That way there wouldn't have been any shortages in the bureau's stock."


Not a bad theory, but the sheets he pilfered ran into the hundreds of pounds, more than he could afford.

Rob


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"Specialised Collector of Australian Pre-Decimal & Decimal Stamps"
Rob1956
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My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland

30 Nov 2019
06:15:52pm
re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi cdj1122

Very interesting and tragic.

Rob

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Author/Postings
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Rob1956

My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland
05 Nov 2019
12:53:41am

Sometime between 1942 and 1947, sheets of printer waste was destined to be destroyed in the furnace, except for the personal interest of a philatelist and employee of the Printing Branch whose job it was to dispose of the imperfect stamps.

He didn’t, and somehow squirrelled away hundreds of sheets of stamps; of course the theft of the sheets would have taken some time, and to be undetected he replaced the faulty stamps meant to be destroyed with sheets of stamps ready for distribution.

The man at the centre of the theft was John George Patrick Martin of Beach Road, Sandringham. The defective stamps were sheets of the 2½d George VI (including the 2½d tête-bêche, of which less than 10 exist). A MLH tête-bêche pair was recently sold for $12,500.

Image Not Found
Imperforate 2½d George VI

Also in the haul were the 2½d Sir Thomas Mitchell., 2½d Newcastle., 4d Koala., 6d Kookaburra., 9d Platypus., 1/- Lyrebird., and the 1/6 airmail. Not mentioned through the media at the time, were SPECIMEN overprints of the Coronation £1 which had been defaced by black ink; these are believed to be rejected stock which was among the material stamps illicitly removed from the Note Printing Branch.

Image Not Found Image Not Found
Peace Commemorative with no watermark

He also had 16 sheets of “trial run” Peace Commemorative stamps, fifteen of the sheets contained 180 stamps and the other sheet was incomplete.

Before the theft was noticed, John Martin had already off-loaded many of the sheets to stamp dealers.

The president of the Stamp Dealers’ Association of Australia (Mr Frank Thornbill) said that he had bought several hundred Peace stamps from Martin at £5 each. Their lack of a watermark and printing errors made the stamp worth £5 each to philatelists. He said that the owner of the stamps told him that many of the stamps had been sent overseas.

This major security breach was such an embarrassment to the Post-Master General’s Department that the PMG's Department and the police made every effort to “hush up” the incident; their reason for doing so was to protect the developments in the investigation into the disappearance of the imperforate stamps from the Commonwealth Note and Stamp Printing Branch and to stop criticisms being made about the theft from philatelic journals abroad.

The London Journal of Stamp collecting which circulated in Britain. Australia, and America, said the authorities here are “extremely dilatory” in pressing the case to its conclusion.

The journal added “since the Post Office denies that there are any sheets short, the only possible explanation is that the imperforate sheets were removed and ordinary sheets substituted."

The Australian Stamp Monthly said that in an article headed “Scandal in the Commonwealth” that it agreed with dealers and philatelists that all the circumstances of the case should not be published.

One of the dangers of keeping such developments in the case being kept secret was that avenues for the thefts of note money and other material might be left open. Philatelists in Australia believed that the imperforate stamps on the market were probably taken from stock which was to have been pulped.

It was mentioned that stamp frauds in the Commonwealth note-printing office involving the theft of a quantity of imperfect stamps which have a high novelty value to collectors were discovered.

Announcing the theft to the media, the Postmaster-General (Mr Anthony) said the prosecution of a person suspected of the offence was now under consideration, and a decision would be made soon about the offender.

Revealing the frauds, Mr Anthony said the appearance on the market of faulty Australian stamps had led to an inquiry. A quantity of stamps which had been printed without the usual perforations, or which were otherwise imperfect, had been recovered from certain stamp dealers.

Inquiries by the postal investigation representative and the Victorian police had shown that these stamps had not been issued by the post office, but had been stolen from the Commonwealth note printing branch in 1947 or earlier.

The stamps were imperfect or spoils that should have been burnt. They had, in fact, been falsely certified to be burnt.

The Commonwealth Bank and the Post Office were much concerned about the discovery and would not hesitate to take legal proceedings if they were found to be justified, said Mr Anthony.
The Herald. Thurs April 13, 1950.

John Martin confronted the stipendiary magistrate Mr. Addison in the Melbourne city court committed for trial a man alleged to have stolen faulty, unused Australian postage stamps from the Commonwealth Note Printing Branch. He was eventually found guilty.
Adelaide News. Wed May 17, 1950

Of the hundreds of stamps Martin had stolen and the many types and face values involved, he was only charged for stealing the “trial run” Commemorative Peace stamps.

JURY ACQUITS ON STAMPS CHARGE

A verdict of not guilty was returned by a jury in General Sessions today, at the trial of John George Martin of Beach Road, Sandringham, a former employee of the Commonwealth Note Printing Branch, on a charge of having taken stamps from the branch’s burning room and having disposed of them.

The Crown case was that Martin had removed the stamps, which were known as “spoils” when they were being destroyed in the burning room.

The stamps, which were the 2½d Commemorative Peace stamps, had been printed on special “Chinese-finish paper” which bore no watermark and which was used experimentally in February 1946 to print the stamp.

In 1947 the stamps were taken for destruction to the furnace room where Martin was employed destroying old cheques.

In May 1950, the stamps, which in fact had never been destroyed, were produced by a philatelist to investigators of the PMG’s Department.

The Crown claimed that Martin had sold the stamps to the philatelist. In his defence Martin denied that he had taken the stamps or sold them, or delivered them to the philatelist.

He said he had no recollection of being in the burning room at the time the stamps were destroyed. Mr O. J. Gillard KC, with Mr P. Murphy, appeared for the Crown; and Mr T. Rapke, with Mr J. A. Lewis, instructed by Herbert and Geer, for Martin.
The Herald, Tues March 20, 1951

In one discussion outside of the SOR forum it was said that the thin paper £2 Coat-of-Arms were part of the printing branch thefts, this information is far from the truth. John Martin was dismissed from his job at the Note Printing Branch sometime in 1947-48; the hearing into the theft commenced in 1950 and the trial in 1951. All £2 Coats-of-Arm (including the thin paper) were printed in 1950-51, long after Martin’s dismissal from the Note Printing Branch.

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"Specialised Collector of Australian Pre-Decimal & Decimal Stamps"
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ikeyPikey

05 Nov 2019
07:33:32am

re: Full story of the NPB Theft

'
Thank you, Rob, for putting that together.

There is something about Australian accounting practices that eludes me.

You've got a pile of good (and counted) printed stamps, and you've got a pile of printer's waste (whether counted, or not).

You've got a guy in The Burn Room expecting the pile of waste, but you send him good stamps, instead.

Q/ Are the good stamps not now missing from the pile of good stamps?

Q/ Why was this fellow only caught when the waste stamps surfaced on the market?

Q/ How did the shrinkage (the polite term for thefts from inventory) go undetected?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
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Rob1956

My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland
05 Nov 2019
11:16:35am

re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi ikeyPikey

I would assume that John Martin would have taken advantage of the lack of man-power during the war and just after to be able to take the sheets. The security would not be adequate, and I don’t think that the printing department would have even thought that any of their staff could do such a thing.

When stamps are printed, the Note Printing Branch will always keep a batch in case there needs to be a resupply of the most commonly used stamp. He would have taken a few sheets from the stock room. And as there was no reason to suspect any member of the printing branch staff to pilfer stamps, especially of the volume that was taken, he would have gotten away with his little money making scheme if he did not sell them to Mr Thornbill who, as a good law-abiding citizen turned them over to the PMG Department, who then informed the police.

Of course this is only hypothetical, but it may have happened that way.

So to answer your questions.

Q. Are the good stamps not now missing from the pile of good stamps?
A. Yes. But it would not be taken from the batches ready for distribution as these stamps would be in full view of staff preparing the cut sheets for distribution, but from the reserve supply from the stock room.

Q. Why was this fellow only caught when the waste stamps surfaced on the market?
A. Mr. Thornbill had decided to inform the PMG's Department of the large quantity of imperforate stamps, otherwise he would have gotten away scot-free.

Q. How did the shrinkage (the polite term for thefts from inventory) go undetected?
A. Most likely a lack of security as a result of the war, coupled with the trust of the Printing Branch towards its employees during the war and just after.

Rob

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"Specialised Collector of Australian Pre-Decimal & Decimal Stamps"
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Horamakhet

05 Nov 2019
05:11:01pm

re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi Rob, and all others


Without naming persons, I know someone whose relation worked for the Post Office for over thirty years, and like many post office workers, he collected stamps.

He would check all the new stamps when they came in and if he noticed anything strange he would purchase the items, without informing his superiors. The rule in the fifties and sixties was if you noticed anything ab-normal about stamps that were for sale, they were to be removed and given to the boss, who theoretically would return them to the stamp printing authorities for destruction.

In practice this never happened, and he accumulated some interesting "varieties" as well as on selling to stamp dealers.

I would say that in the actual post offices, this would have been a standard practice
and probably still continues Australia wide today.

I suppose that it allowed for some otherwise unknown "varieties" to enter into the market.

Regards

Horamakhet.

Like
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Rob1956

My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland
05 Nov 2019
07:08:23pm

re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi Horamakhet

I can confirm such a thing does happen in Post Offices. I knew of a person who had a post office just recently who told me that he used to go through all the stamps in the shop and remove any errors and other varieties and place them into his collection. He gave me one which was an Olympic stamp without Tasmania at the bottom of the map. I'll find it today and upload the error.

Rob

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"Specialised Collector of Australian Pre-Decimal & Decimal Stamps"
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BenFranklin1902

Tom in Exton, PA
07 Nov 2019
04:09:46pm

re: Full story of the NPB Theft

I took the story to mean that the person bought regular stamps from the post office and substituted those for the error stamps. That way there wouldn't have been any shortages in the bureau's stock.

I knew someone who worked for the United States Mint many years ago. Error coins were showing up in the marketplace. It was perplexing to the mint security as employees were scanned by metal detectors as they left. Investigation found that the employee in question was spending the error coins in the lunch room vending machines. A cohort with the vending company was taking them out.

Like
Login to Like
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"Check out my eBay Stuff! Username Turtles-Trading-Post"

Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
30 Nov 2019
04:36:45am

re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Up to about fifty years ago, my wife's father and brother
worked for the Babylon Town dump ( on Long Island, in
New York State) and incinerator site. Each year the local
post office gathered certain unsold inventory that as not
likely to be sold or had been replaced by a new printing
or value.
Of course the postal officials accounted for these stamp
sheets that were to be destroyed by fire.
However the incinerator employees knew that this was usually
done in February and were on the lookout for the postal truck
to be in line. They prepared a water hose near the place where
the truck would back to the rim of the fire pit.
The dump did smell quite badly, the fumes were strong and the
weather was often wet and cold. As soon as the
bundles were tossed into the dump, the postal people got out
of there quickly.
As soon as they were out of immediate sight the hose was
sprinkled on the bundles of stamp sheets and they were
pulled out of the simmering fire. Once the bundles were
dried in a warm shed the outer strips that had become
charred were re-disposed of and the stamps left were divided up.
I recall seeing short sheets, roughly 9 x 9 of the 4½¢ stamps
being used by her brother well into the next year, as well
as other issues.
However, Madam Karma often strikes the unwary. Both of my
wife's family members were struck down by cancer, as were
several other workers, and their illness and deaths were
attributed to the chemical fumes they ingested at that facility.

Like
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".... You may think you understood what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you think you heard is not what I thought I meant. .... "
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Rob1956

My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland
30 Nov 2019
06:15:10pm

re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi BenFranklin1902

"I took the story to mean that the person bought regular stamps from the post office and substituted those for the error stamps. That way there wouldn't have been any shortages in the bureau's stock."


Not a bad theory, but the sheets he pilfered ran into the hundreds of pounds, more than he could afford.

Rob


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"Specialised Collector of Australian Pre-Decimal & Decimal Stamps"
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Rob1956

My clan Coat-of-Arms Scotland
30 Nov 2019
06:15:52pm

re: Full story of the NPB Theft

Hi cdj1122

Very interesting and tragic.

Rob

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"Specialised Collector of Australian Pre-Decimal & Decimal Stamps"
        

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