The RLO or Returned Letter Office postal marking

Two examples of returned aerogrammes from the early 1990’s were studied to track the mail routing and processes. All mails that cannot be delivered are sent to the DLO (Dead Letter Office). Some need to be returned to the sender if the sender’s address is available. There is no date stamp of the RLO (Returned Letter Office) on the mail, only the RLO postal marking that shows the reason for undelivered mail. The name “Burma” is used in the marking. The country name was changed to “Myanmar” in June 1989, but “Burma” is still in use in 1991/1992. Similarly, the name “Rangoon” is used instead of “Yangon”. The reason behind it could be using rubber stamps made earlier than 1989. The GPO arrival postmark uses the name “Yangon”, and the DLO postmark uses “Rangoon”. According to a previous record in The Burma Peacock [Vol 17, No 3, p75], this RLO mark was still in use until September 1995.

RLO Marking

One interesting thing is that the post office staff ticked “Unknown” as the reason of return in the RLO marking. But the actual reason is hand written in Burmese on the mail. Example 1 is “Insufficient address” and Example 2 [next page] is “Addressee Left”. Example 1 stayed at the DLO for four months and Example 2 stayed for two months before returning to Singapore.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 1	Example 2
Singapore 20 May 1991 Yangon GPO 24 May 1991 Insein PO 27 May 1991* Hlaing PO 29 May 1991 Hlaing PO 10 June 1991 Yangon DLO 12 June 1991 Yangon DLO 19 October 1991	Singapore 30 Nov 1992 Yangon GPO 7 Dec 1992 Tamwe PO 8 Dec 1992 Handwritten and Signed Addressee Left 17 Dec 1992 Yangon DLO 21 Dec 1992 Yangon DLO 17 Feb 1992

*  The address shows Insein Road, Rangoon.  Mail sorting man wrongly sorted and sent to Insein PO.  

To reference this article, please cite:

Toe Kyaw Kyar, "The RLO or Returned Letter Office postal marking", The Burma Fantail, Vol. 13, No. 1, Whole Number 47, pp. 12-14, January 2016.