Who'd Be A Mailman? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Crown Jewels of UK

As the largest diamond ever found, the Cullinan attracted much interest and was displayed for a time in Johannesburg before its trip to London. When it became known the gem was to be displayed in London, the security operation was made public to deter potential thieves.

This consisted of detectives and bodyguards accompanying the stone from the mine to the boat and guarding it on the boat while it was locked inside the captain's safe. These details were an elaborate ruse however, and in reality the gem was placed in a cardboard box with three shillings postage and mailed to England where it was eventually bought by South Africa's Transvaal Colony government for £150,000 in 1907 and presented to Edward VII as a gift.

In 1908, the stone was cut and the larger cut, known as The Great Star of Africa, was placed in the head of the Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross and the second largest, called Second Star of Africa, was mounted in the Imperial State Crown.

The rest of the Cullinan Diamond, including seven major diamonds, is privately owned by Elizabeth II.

Answer: A bank

The town needed a bank and the nearest brick yard was in Salt Lake City. Coltharp soon realised that the cost of transporting the bricks to Vernal would have been four times the cost of the bricks themselves but it could be done much cheaper through the postal system. Forty crates of bricks a day were sent using this method, a total of 15,000 bricks, and the bank which was completed in 1917 is still standing. Following this exploitation, USPS changed their rules in order to stop anything similar from being tried in future, with the Postmaster General of the time saying, "it is not the intent of the United States Postal Service that buildings be shipped through the mail."

Answer: Two suffragettes

Suffragette, Miss Solomon and Miss McLellan, mailed themselves as a form of protest and did so quite legally as the postal rules of the time stated that living creatures could be sent by Express Messenger as long as they were larger than a bee but smaller than an elephant. Unfortunately for the ladies, they had to get past a Downing Street official before they got to the prime minister, and the official refused to sign for them, meaning they had to be returned to the sorting office.

Answer: Freedom

Henry "Box" Brown was born into slavery in Virginia in 1815. He married a fellow slave and fathered three children, before his master decided to sell Mrs. Brown and the children to another master. Brown was made to watch from the street as they were marched away with ropes around their necks, and, now separated from his family, he decided to escape his life of slavery.

He made contact with an abolitionist group in Philadelphia and they hatched a plan to hide him in a crate and mail him north. The journey in the crate took 27 hours via rail, steamboat and wagon but he finally arrived, a free man. I heartily recommend the book, "The Unboxing of Henry Brown" (2003) by Jeffrey Riggles.

Answer: "Ulysses" by James Joyce

"Ulysses" was banned in USA and UK for obscenity, but was published in France.
The novel was finally made available in USA in 1934 after courts decided it was not pornographic and shortly after UK lifted its ban too. The first edition of the book that was seized by Royal Mail is in the Post Office Museum in London.

Answer: Tree trunk with embedded horseshoe

All items mailed can not be packaged in a box, envelope or any wrapping of any kind, and the postage and address must be placed directly on the item. All of the possible answers have been mailed in the competition but the tree trunk, weighing 8.6 kilograms (19 lb) and costing $30 to mail was the 2017 winner.

The winning entry receives the last decade of "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" books.

Answer: Game

This rule meant that not even packaging was required, so to see a postal worker delivering a handful of hares or a brace of pheasants would have been quite common.

Answer: Chameleon

The man, referred to only as David, figured that Ohio in winter wasn't the place for a chameleon and so mailed him to Florida. In early December, he received a note from the Postmaster of Orlando, wishing him a merry Christmas and informing him that the chameleon had been released on post office grounds.

Answer: Their daughter

Five year old daughter May was mailed to her grandparents' house as it was the cheapest way of getting her there. I guess there is some logic to the situation when you consider she travelled 73 miles by train for just 53 cents in postage. At the time, Parcel Post Service policy was to accept any package that weighed under 23 kilograms (50 lb) and luckily, young May weighed in at 22 kilograms (48.5 lb).

Answer: Human tooth

The newly repackaged tooth even came with an explanatory note, "Please be advised that human remains may not be transported through the mail, but we assumed this to be of sentimental value and made an exception in your case."