It's
Postcard Friendship Friday. Beth is our new hostess at
The Best Hearts are Crunchy. Marie is retiring as hostess. Thank you Marie, and God bless you.
Two weeks ago I ranted that the US postal system has boring stamps. Part of this my problem was that my local PO was often out of the 44 cent commemorative stamps. Well I'm ready to retract most (not all) of my rant. Yesterday the nice PO clerk alerted to me to the fact that I can order stamps through a catalog of sorts, or on line. I checked out the US Postal Service on line store, and I can order older commemorative stamps - including ones I've never seen! And who knew the USPS offered stamped postcards with art related to the stamp issue?
So, you can send a postcard with the beautiful Kelp forest art, and the stamp is preprinted on it. This is a lot nicer than the blank postcards with a printed stamp!
Philatelists may have been aware of this, but I sure wasn't.
What's the cost? All stamps are sold at face value. A booklet of 10 Kelp Forest postcards is $8.95, or 45 cents for the postcard, 44 cents for the postage. A Scenic landscapes booklet of 20 cards is $14.95, or about 46 cents for the postcard, 28 cents for the postage.
Not bad! OK then, what's the shipping and handling charge - $10.95 or something? No, S&H is ONE dollar for any size order, $3 for special orders (whatever that entails).
Edited to add: It's $1 shipping for stamps and pre-stamped postcards. The PO store sells other things like stamp collecting supplies, framed prints, etc. and there will be the typical shipping charge for these items.
Well, I'm off to order some more Chinese New Year stamps, some postcard booklets and the sheet of Abstract Expressionists stamps that was just released.... Look out Postcrossers!
But, there is still only one design for the international airmail 98 cent stamp.
viridian
