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<Was it the case that there were separate freestanding mailboxes for 'Local' and for 'Out of Town' mail? This feels important.>

I'm quite sure there were. Even the other day in my small local post office I noticed dedicated deposit slots in the lobby for 'Local' and 'Out of Town'. Major post offices typically additionally had dedicated similarly-marked freestanding boxes in front. 'Local' meant San Francisco specifically as opposed to the greater Bay Area, so Vallejo would have been 'Out of Town'.

<What other possible explanation do we have left for the existence of the three weekend-only, hand-cancelled letters?>

If I'm still thinking clearly (!), the original and most uninteresting one -- that they failed the machine cancellation process due to bulk or shape?

One more question:

What would be the reason for the automatic machines to be operating on Sundays, if there were few Sunday mailbox pickups in San Francisco and the two counties?

Were the machines simply handling the overflow from the Saturday pickups?

Xcaliber wrote:<Was it the case that there were separate freestanding mailboxes for 'Local' and for 'Out of Town' mail? This feels important.>

I'm quite sure there were. Even the other day in my small local post office I noticed dedicated deposit slots in the lobby for 'Local' and 'Out of Town'. Major post offices typically additionally had dedicated similarly-marked freestanding boxes in front. 'Local' meant San Francisco specifically as opposed to the greater Bay Area, so Vallejo would have been 'Out of Town'.

So, if this can be confirmed, I think it would support the basic premise that there could have been different processing of the local from the out-of-town mail between the ‘Bus Bomb’ and ‘Little List’ letters and ‘Concerned Citizen’ to perhaps explain the former having been hand-, the latter machine-cancelled.

Xcaliber wrote:<What other possible explanation do we have left for the existence of the three weekend-only, hand-cancelled letters?>

If I'm still thinking clearly (!), the original and most uninteresting one -- that they failed the machine cancellation process due to bulk or shape?

I suppose this, more than anything, is something we will never have absolute confirmation of. From a probability standpoint, however, I currently am happy to go with the great unlikelihood that 3/4 letters would have had to have failed the process at weekends, none on weekdays. The Belli letter certainly (one page plus shirt strip) was no different, in this respect, from the Stine letter.

Xcaliber wrote:One more question:

What would be the reason for the automatic machines to be operating on Sundays, if there were few Sunday mailbox pickups in San Francisco and the two counties?

Were the machines simply handling the overflow from the Saturday pickups?

Overflow handling is a possibility, and if we do get the help of an SF postal worker from the time it will be important to put this as a question. We haven’t really looked at this angle yet, although it has been considered elsewhere and in other threads here, I think.

The issue I would have with this, without confirmation to the contrary, is the one which would arise from the ‘legality’ of postmark dating. From what I have understood from having read through the postal procedures from various periods, it is strongly acknowledged that postmark dates have a legal importance in terms of proof of when mail was mailed. The official ‘definition’, if you like, of when a letter is so mailed seems to have consistently been that of when it arrived into the possession of the Postal Service at the SCF. Intentionally mis-representing a postmark date appears, in consequence, to have been a serious offence for postal workers.

So, I’d have to wonder what constitutes ‘possession by the SCF’.

Would sitting in a bag at the facility awaiting overflow processing from the previous day constitute ‘possession’? We’d need this, like several other things, directly confirming. However, I wonder about the possibility that mail having arrived at the SCF in an AM/PM slot for a particular day, but not actually run through the cancellers owing to some backlog or overflow before the end of that slot, would have its arrival time honoured nonetheless? So, could it be the case that Saturday overflow, in this sense, if having arrived at the SCF on the Saturday, even if late, would yet be required to be postmarked Saturday PM? Or do they just hit a halt at 12:00 noon and 17:00 hrs and call “change the dater” regardless? I don’t know.

The other issue I would have is, what would cause the necessity of an overflow of this kind from a Saturday which, excepting the Sunday itself, must surely be the lowest bulk-mailing day of the week?

If, however, the overflow was processing mail that had been posted in mailboxes very late on the Saturday, so as not to make a Saturday collection, then we’d again need direct confirmation of some sort as to Sunday collections - even though minimal - avoiding the AM, to get only PM postmarks.

Just chiming in to say that the person who wrote the article linked below might be able to answer some of your questions. Although it looks like he didn't work at Rincon, he had a 40-year career with the USPS in San Francisco starting in 1966 and seems to be interested in postal history.

http://www.sfcityguides.org/public_guid ... 2=&topic=B

An email address (from 2006...) can be found here:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threa ... 08705.html

brubaker wrote:Just chiming in to say that the person who wrote the article linked below might be able to answer some of your questions. Although it looks like he didn't work at Rincon, he had a 40-year career with the USPS in San Francisco starting in 1966 and seems to be interested in postal history.

http://www.sfcityguides.org/public_guid ... 2=&topic=B

An email address (from 2006...) can be found here:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threa ... 08705.html

Talk about timing, Bru. For my own efforts, I was just about to put up a “Well, I think I’ve gone as far as I can with this, without some help from a 60s/70s SF postal worker” post, and here comes the possibility of help. Thank you so much for this!

shaqmeister wrote: Thank you so much for this!

No problem! There has been so much good investigation in this thread, but it makes sense to seek out first-hand accounts to fill in the gaps wherever we can. I hope something comes of this.

<The Belli letter certainly (one page plus shirt strip) was no different, in this respect, from the Stine letter.>

Agreed, excellent point.

I will be shortly attempting to contact the gentleman identified kindly by Brubaker as someone who may be able to help us with the key questions we really need answering in order to be able to move things on. I have noticed that the currently available e-mail address for 2006 is a USPS business address, and it would appear that this person is now 70+ years of age and surely retired. I’m sure, in any event, that some way of making contact will be achieved.

As the questions that we need answering are specific ones that can be asked of anyone we can locate, either now or in the future, who worked closely within the San Francisco Postal Service in the late 60s (or, perhaps, a historian of the same), I will pull them together in the following post for current and future reference. If anyone would like to add any questions, perhaps PM me, and then I can edit the one post and keep them all together.

Questions that can hopefully be clarified by someone having worked in the San Francisco Postal Service across 1969/70, particularly if having worked at Rincon.

Re: 1969/70 specifically:

1. Can you confirm, or otherwise, whether the Rincon Annex in San Francisco was the primary mail handling facility (‘Sectional Center Facility’) for the Zip-prefix areas 940-1, 943-4, and whether all mail collected and processed from these Zips would have gone through Rincon and received ‘SAN FRANCISCO’ postmarks?
2. We understand that mail processed through SAN FRANCISCO postmarking was routinely machine-cancelled through what we have identified as Pitney-Bowes Mark II facer-cancellers. Would these have been in operation on a Sunday and, if so, would there have been any limitations to what mail they processed on Sunday (e.g., overflow mail from the previous Saturday collections)?
3. Were there any postal collections of mail to Rincon, even if limited, on a Sunday? If so, how limited, and would this have included (or been limited to) mail dropped in boxes directly outside or in the lobby (if open) at Rincon? Further, would any Sunday-collected mail be guaranteed to have received a Sunday postmark?
4. Is there any possible scenario through which mail, having been collected on a Saturday and brought directly to the SCF, could have remained unprocessed to the next day, thereby achieving a Sunday postmark? If so, could this include the possibility of a Sunday PM postmark?
5. Were there freestanding mailboxes outside and/or lobby mailslots at Rincon that were separated out into ‘Local’ and ‘Out of Town’ mailing destinations and, if so, was there any scenario in which the two might have been subjected to different processing? We are specifically interested in the weekend, particularly Sunday, and would like to clarify whether it was possible for the local mail only to have been hand-cancelled routinely, the out-of-town mail machine-cancelled as usual.

These are our specific questions, which are intended to support clarification of the following primary question:

Q: Would it be possible to infer, from the fact of an item of first class mail having been postmarked ‘SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY PM’ through hand-cancellation specifically, that it MUST have been hand delivered on the Sunday to a mailbox/slot at, or inside, Rincon Annex?

If anyone knows of someone who they feel might be able to help with any or all of these questions, please forward on and report back, or provide contact details directly, if appropriate.