Public Service Announcement

[mizarchivist]

Square envelopes need 12 extra cents to get to where they are going.

I have not yet gone to the post office to see the gamut of supplimental stamps. The online store does not even show you 1 or 10 cent stamps (afaik) and I know they exsist.

Also... I have some left over stamps from 4 years ago that ought be used. They only say "first class" on them, rather than however much stamps cost at that time, but they also have "2000" in very very small print, so I couldn't pass them off as current. Any ideas?

Comments

why do i know this stuff??

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

when you go to the PO bring in your old stamps with you and they can sell you "make up" or "markup" stamps (whatever they're called). Sometimes they just have a letter on them and they make up the difference between whatever first class was then, and what it is now.

The extra postage for square envelopes is a "non standard size surcharge" because they won't fit through the machines.

FYI: the writing on red envelopes can't be read by the machine, so they're handled by hand as well. guess it's too complicated to surcharge those though.

The good news is that for the first time the USPS has money in the bank so they said they don't need to raise rates for quite awhile. Quite a difference from last year when they were losing money hand over fist!

[mizarchivist]

thanks! I dont' think I'd ever considered buying red envelopes. Good to know, though. I will take in those old stamps. Thanks again.

I take it they have multiple machines: the ones to cover letter sizes vs. the manilla envelope sizes and the square ones don't fit either? Or have I tapped out your postal knowledge base?

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

yup, multiple machines for reading/sorting. kind of complicated to try to explain verbally :) my grandfather used to invent postal machines, but that was like, in the 60s or something. hopefully a lot has changed since then, though obviously they've not got the square envelope thing down.