Addressed Mail facts
While investigating facts about Addressed Mail, I found out little known, but curios details like:
The United States Postal Service has about 1,700 employees in Utah who read anything that the automated systems can't read like illegible addresses. About 5 million pieces of mail are read at this location daily. Seasoned employees generally average about 1,600 addresses read per hour.
To get revenge on fellow Boy Scouts who bullied him, a Tokyo resident mailed more than 500 boxes of soggy, smelly garbage including old underwear and rotten tea leaves to his tormentors, writing a random destination as the address with the bully's return address in order to escape detection.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about Addressed Mail I managed to collect.
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In Germany there exists the only tree in the world with its own mailing address. The "matchmaking" tree receives about 1,000 letters per year from singles looking for love. Anyone can take letters from the tree and respond. It is estimated the tree is responsible for over 100 marriages.
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Alan Ralsky, a spammer known as the Godfather of Spam, was signed up for junk snail mail by hundreds of Slashdot readers who found his home address. He said "They’ve signed me up for every advertising campaign and mailing list there is..These people are out of their minds. They’re harassing me."
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Due to name confusion, staff at Slovakia and Slovenia meet once a month to exchange wrongly addressed mail
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In 1986, at the height of apartheid, Glasgow, Scotland changed the name of the square where the South African consulate-general was based to Nelson Mandela Place, forcing the South African attaché to have to write this address if they wanted to receive mail.
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In Iceland, if you don’t know the address to where you want your mail to go, you can hand-draw a map to your destination on the envelope
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The post office in Bedrock, Colorado receives so much fan mail addressed to characters from 'The Flintstones' that they have a special stamp for rejecting the mail that says 'Return to Sender - Fictitious Cartoon Character'
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Many Chinese people use phone-number style e-mail addresses because hanzi characters cannot easily be used, numbers are easier to remember than letters, and their pronunciation can offer other interpretations.
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Due to having similar names, the staff of the Slovak and Slovenian embassies meet at least once a month to exchange wrongly addressed mail
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The "ZIP" in ZIP Code is an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, a name given because mail would not only travel more efficiently but also because the mail would comparatively zip right to your address.
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Legislators mix up Slovakia and Slovenia so often that embassy employees meet every month to exchange wrongly-addressed mail.
Addressed Mail data charts
For your convenience take a look at Addressed Mail figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.
What is true about addressed mail?
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Film critic Gene Siskel went to great lengths to show his contempt for the original Friday the 13th movie. He called the film’s director a “despicable creature,” published the address of Paramount’s chairman so people would write hate mail, and spoiled the film’s ending for his readers.
Costa Rica does not have traditional street addresses, but instead use distances from landmarks to guide taxis, guests, mail etc. - source
Mongolia’s postal service adopted a system that uses a 3 word address instead of a street address. The system maps the world into patches of 9 square meters and assigns each one a unique 3 word address that helps postal workers deliver mail in the city or remote places more efficiently.
In 1932, an English bank moved into its new headquarters at 219–229 Baker Street, London. The site was thought to include 221B Baker Street, the fictional home of Sherlock Holmes, and for many years they employed a secretary charged with answering mail sent to Holmes at that address. - source
Contrary to what's taught in school, you're supposed to use ALL CAPS and no punctuation when addressing mail. It helps the USPS with sorting.
Robert Ripley (of Believe it or Not fame) received thousands of letters addressed backwards, upside down, in Braille, Hebrew, shorthand, semaphore, or Morse code. The USPS eventually had to issue an order that "puzzle mail" would no longer be processed.
When you click UNSUBSCRIBE to spam emails, you have confirmed to the sender that your email address is both valid and in active use. So even though you’re removed from that spammers email list, your information can be sold to another spammer who will then send you even more junk mail
In Iceland, you can hand-draw- a map on a piece of mail without an address, and it will still make it to it's destination.
The ZIP in "ZIP code" is an acronym for "Zone Improvement Plan" and was chosen to suggest that mail travels more quickly (zipping along) when senders use the code in the postal address
