Years ago a friend pointed out to me that every curbside USPS blue mailbox had a year imprinted at the bottom of its right side. This year, which also sometimes included a month, indicated when the mailbox first appeared on the street. The mailbox likely moved from one spot to another over time but the year in which the mailbox entered into service sometimes revealed an impressive lifespan for the humble little structure. This one, from 1967, is one year older than me:
For years I have used this little bit of street furniture insight as a conversation piece, and to impress the ladies (O, how they swooned!). But now this little anecdote has to change. Since the middle of last year the older USPS mailboxes began vanishing, replaced by newer models designed to combat fishing out of mail from the boxes.
I knew about this when the transition commenced last year. Whatever I read at the time said the USPS would retrofit, not replace old mailboxes with the new protective design. It turns out most if not all of the fishing-aware mailboxes will be brand spanking new. So no longer can I amaze my friends with revelations that the mailbox closest to where they live had seen continuous service since 20 years before their birth.
I still find older blue mailboxes with the dates stamped on them. But an overwhelming majority of units I find on the streets date from last year, when the transition commenced. Sooner rather than later that little bit of Carbon-14-esque evidence revealing the generations-old vintage of USPS street furniture will get fully modernized. Everything will be new.
This little bit of joy in finding old stuff can, however, still be gleaned from the other collection of USPS curbside structures: the olive or green colored relay mail storage boxes. These are the kind of boxes where postal workers occasionally find post cards from World War II, or misaddressed letters from the Carter administration. These boxes are usually green or a drab olive color. For some reason this one, from 1957, was blue.
The oldest mailbox I remember spotting dated from 1936. I probably got a photo of it but fat chance finding it now.