letter too small to send?

hello
I went to the post office today to send my christmas cards back home (to the UK) , only to be told that they were too small to be sent! has anyone else had this experience? the measurements are 12cm by 12cm. I sent the same ones last year and had no problems then.

Yes, I have had that experience, with parcels as well as cards. Some post office staff will be stricter/more familiar with the regulations than others, or the regulations may have changed in the last year. You could try another post office, or you will just have to put them in bigger envelopes to send.

I suppose that mails too small owe the risk of getting lost while delivery.

Be it a greeting card, letter, postcard or parcel, at least one side needs to be 14cm minimum. However, columnar parcel can be as small as 10cm long if the sum of the length and width is 17cm or longer.

http://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/service/greeting_en.html

http://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/service/small_packing.html

It's me again. I realized I have a greeting card I bought in Japan some years ago. Enclosed was a bilingual postage list for greeting cards as of March, 2004, and it says "Postage for oversized envelopes are the same as above." In Japanese the word was "teikeigai" which means "either oversized or undersized." The list doesn't mention the minimum size of envelopes.

On the other hand, the official website of the post office now says, "If the size of a mailpiece is within the limits, the postal charge is determined by the weight alone." which suggests it can't be undersized.

Perhaps they changed their policy sometime after 2004.

Thanks Uco and Sira for your information. It does seem to depend on the PO as I tried a few post offices and one accepted them, but 2 others refused them. I didn't particularly want to rewrite them again (thinking of the trees and also my limited time) ..so in the end I came up with my original idea! : I attached a double sided strip of origami paper (1 cm wide) to the top and bottom of each envelope ... and not only did it extend the size, but also looked so pretty too!! I sent them all off yesterday ! what a relief! Thanks again! Have a good day, Alex