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TECHNICAL PROBLEMS IN THE 20TH CENTURY

this ITEM OF THE MONTH was provided by GUNTER PILZ

 
In September of 1999 the European Championships (male) were held in Vienna / Austria. Together with my good friend Piet van den Berg and his lovely wife Ria I attended these games, having prepared some covers to get them cancelled with the commemorative cancels announced by the Austrian Postal Authorities.
A total of four different cancels were applied on the two final days (Sep 11th and 12th, 1999) of the championships, each of them in version 1 and 2 (you can see this number in the top right hand corner).
I sent a couple of these covers to friends and also to my own address. One of these covers is pictured above. Now what is the strange thing about this cover ?
If you check closely, you will find the bar code line crossed out. What had happened ?
The letter was sent from Vienna to Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. Somewhere on its way it must have been misdirected, because on the backside you can see a cancel from Traun, which is a small city close to Linz. So the letter was missent to Traun and then forwarded to Linz. Finally it reched its destination - my Volleyball collection !
19990911g detail 2.jpg (35239 bytes) HP 19990911g RS.jpg (10434 bytes) 19990911g detail 1.jpg (25537 bytes)
Barcode crossed out
(click to see enlargement)		 Backside of the cover postal cancel from 4050 Traun