Re: OT: Postage Stamps

docdwarf_at_panix.com
Date: 03/10/05 

Date: 10 Mar 2005 05:24:37 -0500

In article <SDOXd.624165$Xk.464220@pd7tw3no>,
James J. Gavan <jgavandeletethis@shaw.ca> wrote:
>docdwarf@panix.com wrote:

[snip]

>> A few years back I found a website that
>> mentioned 'discount postage', useable stamps, sold in quantity below face
>> value. Since I still pay my bills the Olde Fashionede Waye, once a week
>> with checks/cheques and envelopes, I purchased some.

[snip]

>> Doing the bills takes a
>> bit longer now - let's see, I'll need a fifteen, a ten, a five, a four and
>> a three - but there's such a sad, sweet feeling that I get from using
>> these things.

[snip]

>So those oldies are still considered legit 'mail coinage' ?

Here in the USA they are... but remember, here in the USA there's never
been a currency-revaluation, no 'today we issue New Dollars, each worth
1,000 Old Dollars' and every coin or stamp issued by the Federal
government will be honored by the Federal government at its face value.
Quite obviously things are different in other Sovereign Domains... but the
USA is still young, there might be such a revaluation to come in the
future, who knows.

>I'm
>surprised that all the envelopes containing checks/cheques, (aren't you
>nice with your Transatlantic translation :-), made it to their
>destination, suspecting that perhaps just one mail-man might be tempted
>to keep an 'oldie'.

How interesting... in my days as a stamp-weenie one of the things
constantly emphasised was The Sanctity of The Mail and although one can
read, almost weekly, about mailfolks who pilfer stuff from what they carry
I'd never thought to apply that possibility to what I send out. I'd
thought of the consternation it might cause the letter-carrier - 'Hey,
Louie, you or Janet got a calculator? Does thirteen plus ten plus two
plus three plus five plus four add up to thirty-seven or is this NSP
(iNSufficient Postage)? That guy's sending out bills again... oh, look,
here's one saying 'ATOMS FOR PEACE', they *gotta* be kidding!' - but it
never occurred to me that the whole envelope might disappear.

Such naieve honesty I have!

>Still, no doubt you would have heard from intended
>recipient if your check/cheque didn't arrive, "AND.... Don't tell us
>it's in the mail !"

Exactly... such naieve honesty they have! There's a minor post-office
near where I work and I'm known to a few of the clerks there; I'll stop in
to get an envelope or a small package weighed and then present it to them
covered with this Materia Philatelia Antiqua. One lass - sweet as the day
is long, with a small, high voice like Betty Boop and a round, dark face
utterly devoid of guile - once commented on the array on an envelope I
handed her and I pointed to one particular item and said 'See that?
That's a 1937 Virginia Dare commemorative, issued to honor the
three-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the first white child
(that they knew of at the time) in North Americal.' (sample visible at
http://www.1847usa.com/identify/YearSets/1937.htm )

Her eyes widened as she expressed disbelief that this stamp before her was
nigh seventy years old... and would have been issued to celebrate
something the likes of which goes unmentioned nowadays. Ahhhhh, for the
Oldene Dayse!

DD

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