Record Holder: Most Mail Received Consistently Over 20 Years

Fun Fact Friday! Individual Record Holder for Consistently Receiving the Most Mail for 20 Years

As Robert Ripley’s “Believe It or Not!” cartoons became incredibly popular, this led to a massive influx of mail to his office, to the point where the U.S. Postal Service struggled to handle it. At the height of his fame, Robert Ripley received on average 3,000 letters a day for over 20 years, according to Ripley’s Believe It or Not!. By the 1950s, and perhaps to this day, the 3K per day volume was thought to be the greatest amount of mail received — over such a large period–– by no other individual in United States postal history.

Complicating the Post Services’ woes were individuals who devised creative ways to address letters to Ripley, often using photos, ciphers and codes, hard-to-read fonts, etc., instead of providing a conventional mailing address.  By 1930, Post Master General Walter F. Brown decided that enough was enough with the Postal Service’s acceptance and endeavoring to deliver ciphered letters, which quite often were intended to make their way somehow to Robert Ripley.  Of course, this situation was undoubtedly exacerbated in part due to both Mr. Ripley’s popularity as well as his tacit encouragement.

Even as late as 2013, Ripley’s Museum was still encouraging fans to send weird and unusual items through the mail, often with few or no destination details, in similar hopes that such items would eventually arrive at Ripley’s Museum.  The 2013 winning entry to this mailing contest was a plate of plastic-wrapped McDonald’s fast food items. Robert Ripley continued to save the letters and parcels that fans sent him, and eventually, the collection was so large it warranted a museum of its own. 

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Photo Credits: 
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! 2013
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/ripley-mail/

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