--- In [email protected], "Scott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:>
> Must be working it's way from up from the South. No magazine here
in York,
> Pa. yet. Maybe it's on Santa's sleigh.
Gents...
Second Class (periodicals) mail service leaves a lot of discretion up
to the local Postmasters as to exactly when they deliver it to the
addressee or forward it along to the next post office closer to the
addressee. In the good old days, it was something like 7 days in
which the local Postmaster had to either deliver it or forward it to
the next post office. Thus, if mailed in a small town in New Jersey,
it would then be forwarded to a major mail center in NJ, then to a
major mail center in TX, and then to a local post office near Billy
Click. Thus, in this example, there are three occasions when the 7-
day rule could apply. If luck was with you, it might only take 1 or 2
days at each "stop". If you were unlucky, it could take up to 7 days
at each "stop". So proximity to the point of mailing has little to do
with speed of delivery. It is more dependent on the workload of
various mail centers and local post offices. Not to mention the whim
of the employees working there.
Consider also the postal mail contracts with the airlines which
usually amount to a tonnage contract for a defined amount of
tons/pounds of mail on various flights. The express overnight stuff
gets loaded first, then 1st class, then parcel post, and last --
periodicals (now known as "media rate"?)-- up until the weight
contracted for is loaded on the airplane. So if Express and First
Class mail is running heavy that day, the entire plane could be
loaded up and no periodicals will go out at all. The next day starts
all over again with the same rules. Leftover stuff from the day
before does NOT enjoy a higher priority as a result of being a day
late. So again, proximity to the point of mailing does not have
anything to do with speed of delivery. How much other higher class
mail is competing for the same airplane space is more the determining
factor.
Back in the good old 3/16 "S"cale Railroading magazine days, I gave
considerable thought to mailing stuff to the opposite coast about a
week ahead of everything else. In theory, everyone would then get
the magazine at about the same time. The post office folks convinced
me that would not assure anything at all and so the idea was never
pursued.
Once periodicals are mailed it is a roll of the dice as to who gets
his copy first and there is nothing the Publisher can do about it.
Unless your name is TIME -- which S magazines are not.
Cheers...Ed L.
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