diff --git a/reader/scripts/notify-probe.ts b/reader/scripts/notify-probe.ts
index 874f308..509fe9f 100644
--- a/reader/scripts/notify-probe.ts
+++ b/reader/scripts/notify-probe.ts
@@ -15,6 +15,9 @@
  *       that is not ours turns off nothing.
  *   Q6  The backfill guard holds: indexing a book the way the startup
  *       crawl does records no new-book event.
+ *   Q7  Releases that predate delivery are never mailed. A backlog whose
+ *       fanned_out_at is NULL only because the column is new must not
+ *       reach the first reader who confirms an address.
  *
  * Runs against a scratch database with no network and no mail: the SMTP
  * transport is never configured here, so notify's own "not configured
@@ -69,7 +72,7 @@ async function main(): Promise<void> {
   // NOTIFY_MIGRATION is the index this feature's migration occupies; the
   // assertion is "at least that many have run", not an exact match, so
   // adding the next migration doesn't break the probe.
-  const NOTIFY_MIGRATION = 13
+  const NOTIFY_MIGRATION = 14
   const before = from ? 'copied' : 'fresh'
   db.getDb()
   const version = (
@@ -98,6 +101,20 @@ async function main(): Promise<void> {
     check(`Q1 table ${t} exists`, tables.has(t))
   }
 
+  // --- Q7: the backlog is stamped, not delivered ---
+  // Only meaningful with --from, where real historic releases exist. On a
+  // fresh database this asserts the migration is harmless.
+  const unstamped = (
+    db
+      .getDb()
+      .prepare('SELECT COUNT(*) AS n FROM releases WHERE fanned_out_at IS NULL')
+      .get() as unknown as { n: number }
+  ).n
+  check(
+    `Q7 no release predating delivery is left unfanned (${unstamped} unstamped)`,
+    unstamped === 0,
+  )
+
   // --- Q2: double opt-in ---
   // requestEmail needs a configured transport; with none, it refuses
   // rather than silently recording an unconfirmed address.
diff --git a/reader/src/server/db.ts b/reader/src/server/db.ts
index 5d1de37..5564690 100644
--- a/reader/src/server/db.ts
+++ b/reader/src/server/db.ts
@@ -345,6 +345,22 @@ const MIGRATIONS: string[] = [
   -- the per-recipient UNIQUE above.
   ALTER TABLE releases ADD COLUMN fanned_out_at TEXT;
   `,
+  `
+  -- History is not news. Every release recorded before delivery existed
+  -- has a NULL fanned_out_at purely because the column was just added,
+  -- and the sweep cannot tell that from a release that happened a minute
+  -- ago — so the first reader to confirm an address would be mailed about
+  -- chapters that dropped weeks earlier, as if they were new.
+  --
+  -- Stamping them closes that. On a fresh database this updates nothing
+  -- (no releases exist yet); on an upgrade it stamps exactly the backlog,
+  -- which is right, because at the moment of upgrade nothing has ever
+  -- been delivered and nothing should be. It is the delivery-side twin of
+  -- the NULL-prior guard in shelfIndex upsert(), which stops the same
+  -- migration-day storm one step earlier.
+  UPDATE releases SET fanned_out_at = strftime('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%fZ', 'now')
+   WHERE fanned_out_at IS NULL;
+  `,
 ]
 
 let db: DatabaseSync | undefined