The Pirate Review - Postage on the Cheap

You can buy just about anything at discount, including U.S. postage stamps

Once again, U.S. postal rates are going up. According to the USPS Web site, the price of a first-class letter is set to rise to 37¢, postcards will cost 23¢, and an Express Mail package weighing in at a measly half-pound will cost $13.65. Of course, you could circumvent these rates by using private carriers—but though their service is markedly better than the Post Office, they also tend to have higher rates. Of course, no other private carrier has the right to handle first-class mail—that's a service the U.S. Post Office has monopolized by force of law for years.

Most frugal families know the cheapest way of keeping in touch with family and friends these days is through e-mail. However, there are certain formal situations—birthdays, Christmas and other major holidays, commencement ceremonies, wedding announcements, etc.—when e-mail just doesn't cut it. Even if you buy everything else at a discount, you can't get around the price of a first-class stamp.

Or can you?

There is a useful benefit the USPS offers to its customers, and if you do a lot of mailing you should take advantage of it—every U.S. stamp issued since the Civil War is still valid for postage at face value. I'm not encouraging you to use your childhood stamp collection to mail Christmas cards. Many of them may be much too valuable to waste. Instead, buy discount postage from a stamp dealer.

Most rare stamp and coin dealers buy up entire collections of stamps at a time. Along with the rare and valuable stamps they re-sell to collectors, they have to pick up a lot of "commons," stamps that are often older but not necessarily collectible. They want to get these stamps off their hands to make room for more valuable inventory; to do this, they often sell big batches of assorted stamps at a discount of their face value. You can buy a quantity of stamps at least 10% cheaper than what they would cost at the post office. This practice is completely legal—at one point or another, when these stamps were originally purchased, somebody paid full price for them—and it allows you to keep the postage price per envelope at a more sane level.

There are a couple of drawbacks to discount postage. Usually you have to buy in quantities of at least $50 to get the discount price, so the initial outlay may be more expensive than just going down to your friendly neighborhood monopoly to pick up a book of stamps. (Then again, after doing this, you probably won't have to pick up any more stamps for years to come.) Depending on your supplier, the denominations of stamps can be mixed, too—so you might have to put several stamps on a single letter to add up to the full amount. But would you do it if you could save at least 10%—sometimes significantly more—on mailing costs? It adds up quickly when you have a lot of items to send through the mail. I wish I'd known about discount postage before my wedding—all those announcements could have cost a lot less to send out.

If you're interested in buying discount postage, check with your local stamp and coin dealers to see if they offer this service. You could also try visiting online philatelists to see what they have available in discount postage. There are frequent auctions of discount postage on eBay; when bidding on postage auctions, look for an excellent feedback rating and inexpensive or free shipping costs. Also, unless you don't mind the tedium of gluing your stamps to letters, look for the phrase "full gum," meaning they're pre-glued and ready to be used.

When it comes to the USPS, my motto is simple: FIGHT THE POWER. I've begun the process of removing the first-class mail monopoly from my life as much as possible; on those rare occasions when I really need to send a letter, my use of discount postage means the USPS can enforce rate hikes to its black little heart's content, and I don't need to care. They're not getting any more of my hard-earned lucre.