Holiday Stamped Envelopes Pulled

I was told this morning by SFS that Winter Fun stamped envelopes are no longer available, and the Snowflakes stamped envelopes have been put on hold. No reasons were given. Only the Poinsettia stamped envelopes are available.

Has anyone heard anything about them? They couldn't possibly be sold out this early. Perhaps some printing problems?

Interesting.

I believe it was reported in another thread that someone who ordered one of the stamped envelope "packets" received only nine stamped envelopes instead of ten. They were asked to return the packet to SFS for replacement. I wonder if this could mean there was some sort of production problem with the packaging of the stamped envelopes?

It could also mean that the majority of stamped envelope packets were distributed to post offices and few were left for SFS sales. Since announced print quantities were quite low and limited to 330,000 of each type of stamped envelopes (meaning 165,000 of each design for the Winter Fun and Snowflakes varieties) and you have to buy them in packages of 10, it means there were only 33,000 packets of 10 of each variety to go around.

Of course, this is all just speculation on my part. I guess we wait and see what happens. Something like this is bound to get the attention of the philatelic media (eventually).

I just checked my Winter Fun & Snowflake envelope packs & sure enough, they are short one. The Poinsettia pack had 10. I'll keep them & help the USPS cut their loss.

Glad I received mine early. No problems in quantity in each packet.
These may be difficult to get in future with so low of a quantity, but as we know, they are Forever and can easily be printed again.

regarding my previous post: I was mistaken in counting the packet of Snow Flakes & Winter Fun Envelopes... I did receive 10 (5 of each design) so I was not short counted. Now does anyone know the reason these issues were removed... was it because of a short count???

It's all speculation at this point, but as mentioned earlier, the print run was extremely low at only 330,000 envelopes of each variety (165,000 of the Snowflake and Winter Fun issues, since there were two different envelopes contained in those packages).

When considering there's 10 envelopes to a package, that leaves 33,000 packages of each variety to go around. If you divide that number by distribution across the 50 US States, it leaves only 660 packages of each variety for distribution to post offices in each State. That number is not only remarkably low, but doesn't take into consideration any of the USPS Store's sales of prepared FDCs nor the sales of the packages of 10 envelopes by SFS.

It suggests to me that demand exceeds supply and since it is a seasonal issue, I doubt an additional reprint will be made.

Since it is my understanding that many post offices still have these envelope packets available for sale, you can probably still find them in larger post offices over the holidays, even if they are no longer offered on the USPS Store's website.

On the other hand, I wouldn't run out and hoard them, as there is nothing to stop the USPS from reprinting them for next year; it's just that it was only a limited print run for this year (more than likely a test market to gauge interest in them via retail sales).

Very wise wt1! USPS can reprint again next year but that may give another Recycle Logo on back! But I feel they will come out with additional issues winter 2015. This week's Linn's suggested the USPS may be shifting stamp production , turning to collectors with decline
in stamp use due to e-Mail & internet. I still feel these envelopes may be come scarce in future for stationery collectors because of low production.

I went to my local post office and found a ton of these envelopes of every kind. One nice thing about buying them at the post office is that you can count off the number of envelopes in each package before forking your money over.

Linn's has posted a "breaking news" article today suggesting that there are no production problems; only a temporary delay until December 8th in availability of these stamped envelopes:

http://linns.com/news/breaking-stam...-unavailable