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Have y'all heard about the new "forever" stamps? I just found out today. The basic idea is that the Postal Service now sells stamps whose actual value for mailing things floats to match the current first-class postage rate, no matter what you paid for the stamp. If you buy a "forever" stamp for 41 cents, and then postage later goes up to 42 cents, you can still use the forever stamp as full postage on a letter. Here's a link:
Anyway, I thought this was great for writers. Before I found out about this, I was thinking it would be prudent to put extra postage on SASE's to make sure they would be usable even if a rate hike occurred while my submission was still in the slush pile. Problem solved!
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That's interesting. Is it a really short article or just not fully appearing for me? What's in it for the post office? Are they trying to eliminate 1 cent stamps? The article doesn't really explain much. But you are right about the SASE that is interesting. Unless you want your manuscript back. Then you need more postage.
Posts: 90 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
I've thought about that. The reality is that most people that buy forever stamps will use them long before any new rate hikes go into effect.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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But you'll be able to buy them right before the next increase, too, and then use them. They're good for the first ounce forever. The USPS has been trying to get something like this going for years, and only recently got approval. (Have I mentioned lately that I work for the USPS?)
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I have not seen even a picture of them, but I understand they don't have a price on them. therefore one cannot use them for international mail as the law states those must show the price. am I right or wrong?
Posts: 1008 | Registered: Feb 2006
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We just discovered an unopened roll of 39-cent stamps and have had to buy 100 2-cent stamps so we can use them (the local PO said they don't buy back stamps).
They also told me that there are no plans to sell rolls of Forever Stamps, that you have to buy them in 20-stamp sheets.
Robert, am I correct in understanding that the postage for additional ounces of first class mail is only 17 cents per ounce?
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It is a longer article, Sunshine. But if you Google "forever stamp" you should be able to find the same information in a format that is visible on your computer. Or try that link again -- maybe it will work for you now!
But you're right, the article doesn't say why the post office would be interested in it. Maybe it would be in their interest because they could print the stamps in huge batches? Maybe it is expensive to keep having to print a new bunch of stamps each time there is a price hike?
The ones I got have the liberty bell on them, and they say "USA First-Class Forever". So, I imagine you would not be able to use it for overseas mail.
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Yes, the second ounce is seventeen cents. However---and for writers, it's a big "however"---for a "large envelope," the first ounce will be eighty cents. Nowhere in the pamphlet I've got is "large envelope" defined, but a nine-by-twelve manila envelope would be "large" in the sense that it goes to a different machine than an ordinary letter.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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You can buy forever stamps before the next rate hike only if you can find them. I had to buy 900 5c stamps and 300 2c stamps because there were no 17c stamps or 80c stamps. I have to use up my 125 24c stamps I still have left from the last rate hike that "will be the last one for a while" only 17 months ago.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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posted
My mistake---I was a little rushed yesterday and didn't thoroughly read the pamphlet I've got---but...
A "large envelope" is defined as anything weighing over three-point-five ounces---it's weight, not size, that defines it.
For these ones, the rate is eighty cents for the first ounce, seventeen cents for each additional ounce. The upper weight limit is thirteen ounces, after which other rates (definitely not defined in this pamphlet) kick in.
With all this, I still don't know what applies to "flats"---that's the postal term for anything larger than a letter but not as thick as a parcel. The first class rates as above should appply---and there are other rates that could be used as well. But a nine-by-twelve-inch manila envelope would definitely be a flat.
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What's going to happen to stories submitted with return envelopes and stamps if they're short the difference between then and now postage rates?
Posts: 1580 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Chances are excellent that they'll get through. Procedures are so automated these days that there's little chance it'll get caught. (But not zero.)
Besides, chances also are that your MS envelope is still over the postage amount despite the rate change.
Besides that, if it's caught, it's supposed to go to the addressee [i. e. you], rubberstamped POSTAGE DUE with the amount written next to it.
So don't stay up nights worrying about this. I'm up nights enough for everybody that hangs out here.
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