A bit of a story I hope you don’t mind I share about keeping expired passports.
Expired passports are like a different kind of photo album …a historical reference to learn about a family member’s past.
My mom died in November. I have found several old passports of hers and my dads. Mom met my American dad in Morocco and they married there and came back to the states after my dad was released from the service in 1956. They came over on a boat (!) along with my 2 year old sister and 6 month old brother (2 of us weren’t born yet). The passports told a story of their address in Morocco which I would have never known. The stamps told stories of their travels - including a trip to Spain for their marriage ceremony.
But the most touching thing I found that I never knew…I found the dated stamp of when the boat arrived in NYC at Ellis Island where they were checked in. It was the same date they she died, 65 years later. 
A little creepy in one way but for me, somehow it is a happy significant moment. All discovered because of the expired passport.
2 Likes
I loved your family story. Thanks for sharing.
Gotta tell you, my passport picture is AWFUL. I took it because free/easy from AAA (we were booking a Hawaii trip at that time - methinks normally they charge?). That was important because we were busy getting read for Hawaii, booked a week out… we never do that sort of thing…. but the Frequent Flier gods were smiling upon us. Do I care about the bad picture. Not much - I’m just glad to have my new passport, because USPS still thinks it is “out for delivery”, en route to the Phili processing center.
My daughter’s new passport came about 3 weeks ago and no sign of the old documents yet.
She claimed to hate her old picture (she was 16) and she is a cute girl (of course). Her new picture looks like a mug shot, and the b&w one is even worse. it looks like they flatten out the photo.
They did tell us over and over when my daughter got her first passport that the documents used as support would come in a different mailing and a plain envelop as those documents were her chinese passport, birth certificate and Certificate of Citizenship. I guess some parents hadn’t been on the lookout for the second ‘plain’ package and had thrown them away! A very costly mistake and some documents weren’t replaceable. If you don’t have the old Chinese passport, it is hard to get a visa to go back to China.
1 Like
My old passport return lagged the new passport by a few weeks.
1 Like
To close out the narrative of my passport renewal odyssey, I just received my passport card and cancelled old passport.
Everything done and dusted in under a month! Fairly straightforward process, IMHO.
ETA: As others mentioned and just to clarify my post, all three items (new passport, old passport, and new passport card) came in three separate USPS mailings.The key point is all three came quickly!
3 Likes
My daughter got her old passport back in an envelop- 2 days ago. She got the new passport about 4 weeks ago. The old one did come in an envelope with a return address of the passport office, not in an unmarked one, but not in an express envelope like the new one came in.
The check for my new passport was cashed this week, about 1 week after I mailed it in. Hope my new one comes as soon as @mynameiswhatever 's did.e
2 Likes