Help me interpret this Return to Sender label

September 30, 2018 3:50 PM

I attempted to send a letter to a friend who was attending Burning Man this year. It did not get delivered and came back with a "Return to Sender / Insufficient Address" label. Is there any way to tell from this label how far it went? Did it go all the way to Gerlach, NV? Did it even make it out of San Francisco? Not important for any concrete reason, I'm just interested to know.
posted by tom_r to Grab Bag (3 answers total)

It got rejected at a sorting machine in San Fransisco on the evening of August 31, 2018 if I'm reading the information correctly.
posted by wierdo at 3:57 PM on September 30, 2018

Best answer: USPS has a guide to what all the elements on the label mean. 895 identifies the processing and distribution center (or possible the sectional center facility?) where the label was applied. Per this list, that would be Reno here, and the label would have been applied on August 31st. I'm not sure if it was stopped at Reno or if it made its way out to Gerlach before they kicked it back.

Also note that the barcode and the text above it should be sufficient to identify your address (technically, the delivery point) as the place the mail needed to be returned, so you may want to block that out.
posted by zachlipton at 4:32 PM on September 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

Mod note: I've removed the original link from the post since the asker needed to redact it. Carry on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:04 PM on September 30, 2018 [2 favorites]