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Who Are We?
The Auxiliary Markings Club (AMC) brings together a diverse group of collectors who are interested in the movement of the mails -- especially mail that had problems. The evidence of those problems are the markings applied to envelopes and packages as the mail was processed. They may have to do with inadequate postage, problems with the delivery address, accidents that occurred with planes, trains, ships or trucks carrying the mail, or literally hundreds of other reasons.
Breaking News
- Our next AMC Zoom meeting will be Tuesday, June 10, 2025 at 7 PM EST by Douglas Quine, Ph.D. on Hiding in Plain Sight: Letter Mail Barcodes, Misdirected Mail, and Modern Postal History. Zoom meeting link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81690034552?pwd=9AJlnPLBF9UDjHbZ8eNxqbOTth4YAQ.1 The full Auxiliary Markings Club Zoom meeting calendar is shown below.
- Two exhibits were recently awarded the Auxiliary Markings Club Award of Merit (full details at https://www.postal-markings.org/award.html):
- Ken Snelson, FRPSC UK International Postage Due Letter Mail: Formative Years of Postal Union -The First 25 Years at ORAPEX 2025, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- Francois Brisse, FRPSC 'PAQUETBOT' Markings on Mail Received in Canada at ROYALE '25 FILEX, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- After 21 years, the AMC website has been completely updated. Each page has a cleaner look and a clearer purpose. Click on AMC Webpage Comments to submit comments or corrections to the webmaster.
- Concerning Auxiliary Markings
- Joint Anthology from PSSC and AMC Gregg Redner, editor - 258 pages free access to all - published February 1, 2025
- Congratulations to Douglas Quine, PhD, who has been awarded the 2nd Annual Tony Wawrukiewicz Award for his July 2024 Auxiliary Markings article, "Unintended Return to Sender Experiment". The award is made annually for the best article appearing in AM during the previous calendar year. The committee congratulated Doug for the excellence of his research and thanked him for bringing forth such an important subject in the area of modern postal history, commenting that his research was both groundbreaking and extremely consequential.
- The New AMC Officers for 2025-2027 have been elected and started their terms on January 1, 2025.
- Members may submit 1 free 40 word classified ad to the newsletter annually (new benefit in January 2024).
Auxiliary Markings Explained
Auxiliary Marking: Postal marking applied to covers by handstamp, machine cancellation, a stick-on label, manuscript markings, or by mechanical or electronic methods such as addressograph or computer, indicating that the covers were given special attention due to some special circumstance. A broad definition would include accompanying postal service letters, and ambulance covers in which damaged or misdirected mail has at times been delivered, and markings placed on covers by institutions other than the postal service, such as the military, prisons, hotels, etc. Auxiliary Markings are sometimes known as Instructional Markings or Supplementary Markings.
In the past, auxiliary markings have not been not well defined and information about them has been dispersed. As we grow, it is our intention to bring together available information in our newsletter, on this website, through an exhibit copy service, a club library, in other publications, and by facilitating communications between interested members.
Auxiliary Markings include:
- addressograph markings
- ambulance envelopes
- cancellations
- censor markings
- crash markings
- delay markings
- disinfection markings
- handstamped markings
- military markings associated with deliverability
- pointing fingers
- postage due markings
- return to sender markings
- security screening markings
- spray markings
- yellow forwarding labels
- and ..... (your favorites)
Auxiliary Markings Club (AMC) Zoom Meeting Calendar
- January 14, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Tom Fortunato - My Titanic cover that missed the boat
- February 11, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Gary Loew - Jusq'a marks
- March 11, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Ken Snelson, FRPSC - Early British postal labels
- April 8, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Andrew Kelley - Twentieth-Century Disinfected Mail in the United States
- May 13, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Gregg Redner, FRPSC - The UPU Postal Return Labels of Yugoslavia
- June 10, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Douglas B. Quine, Ph.D. - Hiding in Plain Sight: Letter Mail Barcodes, Misdirected Mail, and Modern Postal History
- September 9, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Regis Hoffman - Private Auxiliary Markings on Hollywood Fan Mail
- October 14, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Arnie Janson - Unusual auxiliary markings on unusual mail
- November 29, 2025 (new date) at 1 PM EST: (Saturday: 1:00 PM) - Chris King, RDP - Danish Auxiliary Labels
- December 9, 2025 at 7 PM EST: Blair Ashford - PAID ALL: Postage Paid Markings of Newfoundland
Auxiliary Markings Club (AMC) Updates
Ask A Question
Click on Ask A Question to submit a question to an Auxiliary Markings Club officer.
Last updated May 14, 2025. Copyright (c) 2004-2025 by the Auxiliary Markings Club.
Dennis Ladd has updated the free complete index for the Auxiliary Markings Club newsletter (through 2024) in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format. Please advise him of any corrections or additions at: 