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this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2025
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Germany
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One thing to keep in mind:
To my knowledge the 1.25€ letters are not "priority" (don't even know of such a thing existing at all...)
Judging from the identically priced postcards I regularly send from here (doing postcrossing), it might take weeks for them to arrive.
Apparently all international mail is priority. Nationally, I have a choice between priority and regular economy. But if I am sending something to another European country, priority is the only option. BTW, I saw “priority” printed next to the printed postage, which was in the same print (not a stamp).
That's odd. No priority mail option in Germany. And also, "priority" is not even a German word.
Who was the sender of the letter? Printed postage stamps are used by large institutions that do the printing themselves on site.
Perhaps they just printed an added "priority", taking chances that it then might get handled faster in the destination country. Worth a try :-)
A snip of it is attached. I would say it came from a medium size org which unlikely sends much mail. It was a personal response to a letter that I sent them. I doubt they would be sending enough to get a bulk rate because they wouldn’t be sending out mail routinely.
Because it’s internationally sent, I suppose English would be a norm for any standard indicators. But you could be right that writing priority was a kind of custom msg as opposed to a paid service.
It took 4 days to reach an adjacent nation, which is about twice as fast as mail moves went both endpoints are within my city.
So, that sounds not bad, worth a try, if you find a way to do it.
Regarding "priority" stickers/prints:
Found a German Youtube channel that did some tests, sending letters with and without sticker to half a dozen destinations.
Took the same time for both variants to each destination (in one case the priority-stickered one even took a day longer...).
So, doesn't seem to generally hurt, but probably not necessary.
Did they do that test domestically or internationally?
I suspect it does not matter for international mail because (apparently) /all/ international mail is priority. At least where I am, there is only a service variation for domestic mail. I’ve asked a few different post offices for non-priority Europe-bound stamps. They do not exist. We have a choice between priority stamps and regular for domestic. As the world suckers for the digital transformation and postal usage declines, there are fewer deliveries per week for the lower class mail. It was announced that deliveries have been reduced to like 3 or so times per week for non-priority mail and I expect it to worsen.
Regarding the test you mention, 6 mailings is a tiny sample. A non-priority envelope can perhaps get lucky if the timing is such that it reaches the local post office on a delivery day. Whereas priority /should/ go out for delivery ~5 or 6 days out of the week, IIUC.
I have started using the Event Timer app (in f-droid) and set up a button for priority mail and non-priority. So when any non-priority mail comes, I log it as non-priority. It’s too small of a dataset to be useful but perhaps in a few months I’ll see a pattern.