USPS Brick & Mortar Won't Sell Me Stamps - Is This Typical?

I am still steaming

Went to local (20 min. drive away) USPS this morning to see which stamps I could pick up in singles before shopping online and having to buy blocks and sheets of everything and pay the shipping. Last time I did it, I got about $50 of stuff, so I figured it would be worth the gas, right?

First counter: she pulled a few bits out of her drawer and I managed to pick up Louisiana, Bonsai booklet, white roses Forever, Johnson flowers and red ribbon Love. $10.80 She had other sheets under the vinyl protector on her countertop, but refused to tear into them to give me a stamp (eg Danny Thomas, Cherry Blossoms). She had the left and right Cherry Blossoms stamps, torn apart, in the drawer, and suggested I buy them individually and stick them back together at home!

Second counter (I rejoined the line to see what the other lady might have): she said she had NOTHING she could sell me. Did not open a drawer and denied that she had anything smaller than a full mini-sheet of anything.

I told her I just needed singles of whatever she might have and she said she had nothing -- hands on hips and she didn't even open the drawer to show me the Air Mail / regulars. I mean, surely she must have some stamps of SOME sort in there???

I asked her for the Priority Mail and Express Mail stamps and she said she didn't have any. Is that possible?

Is this normal? Do you really have to buy a whole mini-sheet of 20 at the USPS brick-and-mortar locations and/or grovel to get them even to show what little "loose stuff" they might have?

PS The line was long (10+) when I got there, but it was down to 1-2 people waiting while I was actually being served at Counter Two, so it's not like she had a crowd of people fuming behind me (and I did stand in line twice).

I've had nothing but heartburn trying to buy postage at the post office in anything other than full sheets/rolls.

I recently took a small package into the PO and asked for enough stamps to cover the $3 postage. The clerk insisted on putting metered postage on the package because there was one person waiting in line behind me, and he "didn't want to hold-up the line."

So now, I have to keep a postal scale and a stash of US postage just for those occasions when I'm mailing philatelic items to other collectors, since I know the post office won't accommodate.

JanS: This is not typical at least in my area. There's six post office near me and ALL of them will show me what they have to offer. The closest of the post offices to me usually has everything since they don even have a meter machine.

Best thing to do is to report them for their unfriendly and unsupportative behavior.

As for making sure you get stamps vs. a meter, always get your stamps first. Know the weight and values of stamps needed first (real easy with the flat rate boxes if used) and never ever hand a clerk an unstamped package.

Fortunately, I have never had such negative encounters, but I also do everything I can to avoid the larger post offices. The smaller (one or two person) post offices are often much more accommodating to collectors than the larger post offices.

Frankly, I can see the postal clerks point in attempting to streamline the process, as they don't want to sell to you one or two single stamps from an entire sheet, when the remainder of the sheet has to be manually accounted for in their inventory. If the clerks wind up with multiple sheetlets of stamps with only one or two stamps missing, most customers don't want them, and so they typically have more accounting paperwork to do because of it and probably wind up having to use the extra stamps on parcels that come through. Either way, it just slows down the process.

The ability to buy stamps in block form from SFS was meant to become a means to accommodate collectors who couldn't obtain the desired stamps at the local level. While there is a small service charge, it wasn't too many years ago when even SFS would insist that you buy a whole sheet or strip of stamps to get the one or two you wanted; only in recent years did they change that regulation.

The only stamps that I know of that currently have a REQUIREMENT that you MUST buy the entire sheet of stamps, are the Civil War Stamps and the Lunar New Year Stamps, as both are considered "souvenir sheets" in the eyes of the post office and therefore require consumers to make that extra purchase.

From what I've heard from you all and then seen, there is a great divide between service at different post offices. My little dinky substation is cooperative to the nth degree (wt1, they even split a Lunar New Year sheet to give me four). My only problem with them is that because they're small they don't get everything the big offices get. I've still not gotten the Glacier Nat'l Park (C149) or the 65 cent Wedding Cake (4602). When I've gone on vacation, they've even tucked away certain items that they know I'll want. They joke with me that I'm the only person that ever buys the Eid or Kwanzaa stamps. Yeah, they'll bust one of those sheets for me too!

You must have a very accommodating postal clerk to be willing to do this for you, as it was directly against policy according to this excerpt from the Postal Bulletin:



In fact, if you have a post office that scans the barcode of the stamps, the barcode will forbid the purchase of less than a sheet of the stamps so encoded, as the barcode won't allow the clerks to override it. (Some of the smaller post offices, who don't have the latest technology, and it just gets entered into their system as a non-descriptive first class stamp, may get by this process, though.)

All small post offices, in addition to the larger ones, get automatic distributions of all commemorative stamps. Where it gets complicated is that the non-first class rate stamps (i.e. lower denominations, or for 2nd oz., 3rd oz., overseas, express and priority mail, etc.) are NOT automatically distributed and it is up the to the local postmaster to manually order what they need to accommodate their usage. If they have a meter, in all likelihood, they won't bother ordering some of the higher denomination stamps if they have little call for them on the retail level.

Jan,

look into the local stamp club, the club I belong to has a person who takes your order gets the stamps in the format you want and passes them out. A way to get over, under or around the brick wall that USPS put up.

In my hometown of Jersey Shore PA. they are fantastic about assisting collectors. I have already had the clerk pull the entire drawer out and lay everything out on the counter and we talked for about an hour on all the issues we liked or disliked- but needless to say the service was fantastic! I miss that place. It's surprising what a smile and a little small talk can produce in a small town post office. The one in Curwensville PA. is really nice and if they aren't busy of course then they are usually very accommodating.

I truely treasure a great small post office and my local one is the best I've found. It's the complete opposite of the unfortunate experience JanS had. Today, my local postal clerk said he was cleaning up and had some "older" stamps to sell. I was able to pick up complete mint sheets of the 39 cent Wonders of America, 39 cent Motorcycles, 37 cent Teddy Bears, 37 cent Neuter or Spay and 37 cent Reptiles and Amphibians. He also had the 37 cent Lewis & Clark sheet and Children's Story Books. I'll probably buy the rest at a later date. Some folks are going to get some nice covers later :)

I stopped collecting new stamps on Dec 31, 1999 with the New Year baby. That doesn't mean that I don't buy new stamps. I also have accumulated a lot of older stamps that I sometimes use on my outgoing mail. When I pay a bill I use some 3 center, 15 centers, whatever I have handy. I usually overpay by a cent or two and I always go to the counter for the hand stamp cancellation. Its gotten to the point where those behind the counter look at the franking just to see the old stamps and to make sure I have enough postage. Occasionally, I even put some on the back of the envelope just to throw them off.

The point I'm trying to make is that the guys behind counter are always friendly and very cooperative. The situation you described is the exception, not the norm, in my experience.

Art

My post office is always so cooperative. I tried to catch up with stamps yesterday but there was someone in line behind me and I felt bad holding up the line, so I left with only a few. No fault of the post office, though.

Quick follow-up:

I returned to the same USPS location the next day, armed with the information provided here, ready to do battle.

One of the same ladies was there but I got a different person and she not only emptied her drawer, but when I enquired about the (still complete, of course) Danny Thomas sheet under the clear vinyl mat on the next counter, she leaned across, snagged it and promptly ripped me a plate number single.

Unfortunately, she didn't have a lot of new stuff in the drawer, but at least all I had to do was ask -- so my faith in USPS was a little bit restored.

Thanks, everyone, for the advice and information!

Sometimes postal clerks just have a bad day and don't want to be bothered with collector's requests. On the other hand, there are some great postal clerks in the USPS, too. Unfortunately, the "old-timers" are retiring now, but here's a nice human interest story of a guy that looks like he was perfectly suited to his job. Too bad we only hear about these people at the end of their career:

http://unioneagle.com/2012/05/skips...post-office/