Wednesday 15 February 2012

"Private" Royal Mail Special Delivery Label

A reader has sent a copy of a Special Delivery PPI (Postage Paid Impression) label, used by Courier/Distribution company FRT Group of Crawley last October.

I presume the company is allocated a batch of numbers and prints the labels when sending out tickets for events or journeys (note the 'Booking Reference').

 

This is on a standard DL window envelope, so I suppose there would be no excuse for not obtaining a signature on delivery.  But without the sliver and blue of the standard labels, it would be easy to overlook this type of thing in the sorting office, given that so much mail has so many different non-postal labels, barcodes etc on.

Updated March: Another reader has sent a copy of a similar Recorded Signed For label:

 

It seemed appropriate to include it here.  As mentioned in the 'comments' it seems even more likely that this would be overlooked, than the separately handled Special Delivery packet.

6 comments:

  1. Here is one i got in kiloware of labels.
    http://i43.tinypic.com/s0y689.jpg
    Think it is Recorded Signed for.

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  2. Special delivery is kept completely separate in the process through Royal Mail's network. They are kept away from normal mail in the delivery office and the postman must sign for them and take responsibility for them. It's unlikely it'll be missed by a postman, otherwise it could cost him his job.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, I know the system (been there, done that).

    The RSF/recorded items are more likely to be overlooked; as one of our postmen said the other day, "it's much easier with the big orange flash across the item". And many incoming international items are overlooked despite the 'signature required' rubber stamp. Nobody up the line will miss them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. A black and white 'private' Recorded Signed For label is now shown, and it reinforces my belief that these can easily be overlooked.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I know this is an ancient post but as no one entered info about this here goes!. The label is called a COSS label - meaning Customer Own Solution (System?). For recorded delivery they are meant to also affix a signed for flash label - P6041 which is orange in colour to prevent overlooking issue - there is a dated pdf about coss for that era that also mentions flash labels. Special delivery does not have this requirement though they did issue flash labels for that product as well. (https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/RM_COSS_Guide_May2012.pdf)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Dino. It seems to me that - even without stamps - this is an important aspect of postal history.

      Delete

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