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Dead letter mail or undeliverable mail is mail that cannot be delivered to the addressee or returned to the sender. This is usually due to lack of compliance with postal regulations, an incomplete address and
return address In postal mail, a return address is an explicit inclusion of the address of the person sending the message. It provides the recipient (and sometimes authorized intermediaries) with a means to determine how to respond to the sender of the message i ...
, or the inability to forward the mail when both correspondents move before the letter can be delivered. Largely based on the British model that emerged in the late eighteenth century, many countries developed similar systems for processing undeliverable mail. The term 'dead mail' is perhaps a misnomer, and several jurisdictions have opted for the use of the term 'undeliverable mail' as more clearly representing the status of the item whose transmission has been impeded. As it is performed by internal departments within postal administrations, little information about the dead letter office function has ever been made public. A few journal articles and at least one recently published book (Canadian) dealing with this topic have appeared. Classification as a dead letter is one of the few instances where postal personnel are allowed to violate secrecy of correspondence, ostensibly to search for clues as to the letter's origin or destination. Countries must also set up regulations for the disposal of dead letters, particularly when they contain items of value. Some very valuable items have turned up in undeliverable mail, including a stolen painting by Marc Chagall which turned up in a United States Postal Service sorting center in Topeka, Kansas in January 2002. Many countries, including Canada and the United States, have issued special labels for envelopes that have travelled through the dead letter office. Genuinely used examples are highly prized by collectors, although mint labels, because they have no postage value, are often fairly common. People interested in postal services throughout the world sometimes deliberately send mail to fictional addresses throughout the world to see if a particular nation's postal authority would return the mail to the sender. Collectors of postal markings also use this method in order to receive uncommon postal markings seldom seen in everyday mail.


Dead letter office

A dead letter office (DLO) is a facility within a
postal system The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal syst ...
where undeliverable mail is processed. Mail is considered to be undeliverable when the address is invalid so it cannot be delivered to the addressee, and there is no
return address In postal mail, a return address is an explicit inclusion of the address of the person sending the message. It provides the recipient (and sometimes authorized intermediaries) with a means to determine how to respond to the sender of the message i ...
so it cannot be returned to the sender. At a DLO, mail is usually opened to try to find an address to forward to. If an address is found, the envelope is usually sealed using tape or postal seals, or enclosed in plastic bags and delivered. If the letter or parcel is still undeliverable, valuable items are then auctioned off while the correspondence is usually destroyed. Despite this practice, in the past some undeliverable envelopes were acquired by
philatelists Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting or the study of postage; it is possi ...
. Dead letter offices go by different names in different countries. Other names include returned letter office or undeliverable mail office.


Canada

Canada Post Canada Post Corporation (french: Société canadienne des postes), trading as Canada Post (french: Postes Canada), is a Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada (the opera ...
sends mail which is not deliverable to the Undeliverable Mail Office (NUMO) at Mississauga, Ontario, or North Sydney, Nova Scotia. Domestic mail which is still undeliverable after passing through NUMO is then destroyed, while incoming international undeliverable mail is returned to the country of origin.


Malta

In Malta, undeliverable mail was sorted in the General Post Office in
Valletta Valletta (, mt, il-Belt Valletta, ) is an administrative unit and capital of Malta. Located on the main island, between Marsamxett Harbour to the west and the Grand Harbour to the east, its population within administrative limits in 2014 wa ...
. The facility was initially known as the Returned Letter Branch, but later on it was also referred to as the Returned Letter Office or Dead Letter Office. Various postal markings were used at the facility from 1889 onward.


United Kingdom

A Dead Letter Office was first established in 1784 for dead and missent letters that had reached London. The bye-letter offices dealt with bye-letters and those that did not go to London. No postage was charged for returns, which were made after six months, where an addressee was found. From 1790, a charge was made for returned letters but the time was reduced to two months by John Palmer. Upon hearing of the return charge William Pitt rescinded the charge. In the UK, undeliverable mail is processed in the National Returns Centre in
Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
which holds 20 million undeliverable items, or in a smaller office in Portsmouth.


United States

The U.S. Post Office, as it was known then, started a dead letter office in 1825 to deal with undeliverable mail. By 1893, it handled about 20,000 items every day. Patti Lyle Collins was a long-time employee of the office, responsible for the redirection of an estimated 1,000 letters a day. In 2006, approximately 90 million undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) items ended up in the dead-letter office of the U.S. Postal Service; when the rightful owners cannot be identified, the correspondence is destroyed to protect customer privacy, and enclosed items of value are removed. Items of value that cannot be returned are sold at auction, except for pornography and firearms. The auctions also occasionally include items seized by postal inspectors and property being retired from postal service. These facilities are now known as mail recovery centers (MRC). Other former names include the dead letter branch and the dead parcel branch. The USPS mail recovery center is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Since April 2013, the postal auctions have been held online and include not only material lost in the U.S. but also material from other national postal authorities who consign them to the USPS for auction.


In popular culture

*The first full-length American detective novel, ''The Dead Letter'', is partially set in the Dead Letter Office in Washington, DC. The book was written by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor under the pseudonym Seeley Regester in 1866. *The rock band
R.E.M. R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first alternat ...
released a compilation of B-sides and rarities in 1987 entitled '' Dead Letter Office''. *In the 1947 film ''
Miracle on 34th Street ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (initially released as ''The Big Heart'' in the United Kingdom) is a 1947 American List of Christmas films, Christmas comedy-drama film released by 20th Century Fox, written and directed by George Seaton and based on ...
'', two mail sorters handle a letter addressed to " Kris Kringle" at the New York City courthouse, and decide to deliver all the
Santa Claus Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring children gifts during the late evening and overnigh ...
mail now in the dead letter office to the courthouse, where a man calling himself Kris Kringle is facing a mental competency hearing. The man's attorney uses the huge volume of mail as evidence that the federal government recognizes his client as "the one-and-only Santa Claus". *Horror writer Clive Barker's book '' The Great and Secret Show'' features segments centered on the dead letter office in Omaha, Nebraska. *In 1993, the USPS issued a 29c Elvis Presley stamp. Many fans of Elvis sent letters to fictitious addresses so that they would receive their letters back, marked with the words "return to sender", a homage to the song " Return to Sender". *In ''
The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...
'' episode "
Sunday, Cruddy Sunday "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" is the twelfth episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 31, 1999, just after Super Bowl XXXIII and the p ...
", Springfield Elementary School visits their local Post Office and are treated to a piece of undeliverable mail from the dead letter office as a
souvenir A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...
. *In the 1996 comedy film '' Dear God'', a character played by Greg Kinnear, who works in the dead letter office in Los Angeles, California, responds to letters written to
God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
. *The 2014 television series '' Signed, Sealed, Delivered'' takes place in a fictional dead letter office in Denver, Colorado. * Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel ''
Going Postal ''Going Postal'' is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 33rd book in his ''Discworld'' series, released in the United Kingdom on 25 September 2004. Unlike most of Pratchett's Discworld novels, ''Going Postal'' is divided into ...
'' takes place in a post office. At one point, Moist von Lipwig, the novel's protagonist, takes it upon himself to track down the intended recipients of as many dead letters as possible. *The ''
Bones A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, and ...
'' episode "The Male in the Mail" (season 7, episode 4) featured a decomposed body turning up at the dead letter office in Washington D.C. *In Herman Melville's short story "
Bartleby, the Scrivener "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of ''Putnam's Magazine'' and reprinted with minor text ...
", it is suggested that Bartleby had been employed as a clerk in the "Dead Letter Office at Washington". *In late 2019, the rock band Soul Asylum released a song titled "Dead Letter". *The level in the 2021 videogame ''
Psychonauts 2 ''Psychonauts 2'' is a platform game developed by Double Fine and published by Xbox Game Studios. The game was announced at The Game Awards 2015 ceremony, and released on August 25, 2021 for PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, ...
'' titled "Cruller's Correspondence" is an abstract representation of an old-fashioned post office, which includes both a "Dead Letter Office" and an "International Dead Letter Office". *The 1998 feature film '' Dead Letter Office'' is based around the unrequited love and unfulfilled dreams of characters at an Australian DLO.


References


External links

{{NSRW Poster, Dead-Letter Office
Dead Letter Office
Smithsonian Arago — People, Postage and the Post

National Postal Museum *
No return address
('' Smithsonian'' magazine, July 2000)
Mail Recovery Center Guidelines
USPS
Dead Letter Office fees at different points in US history
Error Postal systems Philatelic terminology