Bought 100 “Forever” stamps for $30. If you use them, then you can do the same. Prices vary.
USPS has surplus stamps they sell in bulk to resellers. You buy from the reseller(s). Most are selling a legitimate version of the “Forever” stamp.
Do a search for “discount stamps” or “discount Forever stamps” (and so on). Check them out and see what is offered. Businesses and churches (etc) can use them. So can someone mailing wedding invitations (!!) and so on. Stamps must be applied by hand, so that cost needs to be considered. Kids paid in ice cream might be good (G) for everyone.
At my current rate I may well already have enough to last my the rest of my life. I use stamps, but at a very slow rate. Three or four around Christmas. I’m sure there are other occasions, I just can’t remember them.
Think about what you posted. They do sell them. Otherwise, they would have to destroy them. Makes more sense (rationally AND $$$-wise) to sell the surplus and pocket the cash than spend MORE money to physically destroy them.
It makes a lot of sense for them to sell as many stamps as they can make, even at a discount. That’s because stamps are a lot like gift cards, a substantial portion of them are purchased but never used (lost, damaged, stored, etc).
I had a credit card a few years ago that included a benefit of $10 or $20 a month “free” at the post office for a few months, so I purchased a few sheets/books of stamps each month to use that benefit. Now I have enough stamps to last my lifetime or longer. I use only one or two stamps a year. Here’s a pic.
Think about this. They could print an infinite number of stamps, because the cost of printing is far less than the cost of purchase. (The expenses of the Post Office are in the delivery, sorting, transport, etc. not “stamp printing.”
Quote:
The Postal Service makes it clear that it does not sell postage stamps below face value.
Forever stamps can be used at any time in the future.
If you have a 3 cent stamp from 1860, you can apply it to an envelope, add enough extra postage to make the 1st class fee and drop it in any USPS collection point and have it be processed and delivered.
When I go buy stamps at the post office, they will give me anything on the shelf. Old ones, new ones, what ever they have. If they have a mixture, they will ask if I have a preference. Small sheets, large sheets, rolls, standard design, commemorative, etc.
The mint was required to manufacture a minimum set number of the new style dollar coins by law. Few banks wanted them and the treasury department was using a lot of space to stored unsold coins.
One solution was to sell them at face value and 2 times per year, postage was free. So I could order 250 coin boxes (10 rolls) of the current Presidential series or Native American series. I could pay $250 and get $250 delivered to my PO box.
I use them as tips in restaurants. The staff love them!
Then our intelligent congress decided the mint was “giving away money” at a loss!
At the time, the manufacturing cost was 18.6 cents per coin. So they sold me $46.50 in product cost with $15.00 postage/handling for $250. A 75% profit margin! And they reduced the storage cost.
A loss ?
Now the cost for a box is $290 for $250 of coins, $117.50 for $100 of coins or $34.50 for $25 of coins plus postage.
When the authorized sale time is past, they waffle the coins remaining and sell the metal rather than storing them forever. That is a waste of our money.
You missed the point. USPS has to keep making more NEW stamp designs/etc because the market demands them and wants more. However, many are not bought for postage but to memorialize something or as part of a set. But the only way the USPS can do that is to issue more stamp designs. They run out of storage space and need to clear out the old stuff, even if it is perfectly usable.
The claim the USPS does NOT sell “discounted stamps to the public” is factually true. But there is a catch.
Did you know the govt does not allow a wide variety of highly radioactive materials to be sold to the public? Sound familiar? Yet I used to buy those (sometimes highly) radioactive materials. Guess what? Sales to accredited buyers and/or end-users ARE allowed–but NOT to the general public. So the USPS can sell to accredited buyers “at a discount” and the public can’t get in on it.
The accredited buyers then resell to the public at a discounted price.
Forever stamps are great you don’t have to get 2 cent stamps to add on everytime they raise the price. But theyre only great if you remember where you put them! I also bought some on sale with a discount.
100 forever stamps, currently $0.63 each. 100 of them for a bargain of $62.75!!!
Does Costco get them for less than that and apply a wholesale to retail markup?
I would think that there is a transaction cost within the USPS for having a retails clerk sell stamps to the public.
Nope. One of those stamps only cover the first ounce. Their hotdogs are advertised as being over a quarter pound, so even without the bun and packaging that would be five ounces. And those stamps are for letters, not packages. Just check out the USPS rates.
There is the difference. The current stamps are “Forever” to cover the cost of the first ounce of postage whatever the current first class postage rate. Not so for the 3-cent stamp from 1860.
When they offer to sell US postage stamps on line for $30 for 100, are they real or are they counterfeit? Do they work?
They might be counterfeit. On the other hand when companies go bankrupt and people buy up all their office assets they might get stamps too at a big discount. How do you convert them to cash? Selling them on the internet might be one way. Or are they stolen?
I would think that a company of any size that uses lots of “stamps” would have a postage meter (like Pitney Bowes). If you close the account you can cash out unused postage for full value.
