Philtaletic Window Pane-Breaking Policies

Hi all – Did the post office philatelic windows break panes? Or did you have to buy the full panes of 100 like with the USPS Philatelic Catalogs? For example, if you wanted the $1 or $2 stamps, would you have to spring for the whole $100-200 pane? I mean back in the 20th, and the 2000s, when they had the philatelic windows at major post offices. We had one – and only one – in Tucson at the main office, so I assumed they were one-per-city deals. (I think they're all gone now.)

By the way, do dealers have to order from the Philatelic Catalog, or do they have a separate channel?

Thanks.

I never had to use a "philatelic window" to get a particular stamp. If I wanted one $5 stamp, I just asked the person on duty at the regular counter to give me one. That is the real purpose of having stamps. For mailing things. Sometimes it could be a problem finding a particular stamp though.

yes, philatelic windows would break panes (although some might have had a limit on breaking oanes for a PB if they already had a number of broken panes).

Philatelic windows all sold postage and would sell you (say) $1 singles or just one first class stamp for your letter. Whatever they would be able to sell justified them being kept open. So if a customer knew that they could buy postage there (and most didn't), they wouldn't have to stand in line just to buy stamps.

Many would sell you plate blocks or even PNC5s (with a choice of positions and/or plate numbers) and send the rest back for destruction. I remember the clerk at the Inglewood, CA main PO even cracked open coil packages to allow customers to check for shifts and such. Some also kept (small) stocks of older stamps for several years until they ran out. A very few might require you to buy a (double) strip with plate numbers (and not a full pane) or coil strips (and not a full package of 100) but if you just needed a stamp, even just a needed commemorative single, you could get it there.

Those days are history. I used to visit the one at the main office in Raleigh North Carolina during the 90's . It was maned by the same person that did passports,

What did they do about all that broken glass?

Nullifies the need to send them back for destruction

That reminds me that the Chapel Hill post office owes me $20. The guy at the counter kept my $20 cash back, and did it in a particularly smooth way that made me think it was a system for him. Of course, the customer has to first forget about their cash back, which I did, but there are ways to facilitate them forgetting. (I still catch myself nearly forgetting about cash back sometimes, at supermarkets – I guess it's perfectly infrequent enough that it never gets established as a habit to attend to that final bit of business...)

It's a bummer that the USPS catalog forces big panes, though they seem smaller than back in the 80s, when all the panes were 100.

Pretty much all my plate blocks from the 70s were from them being torn off a sheet at the post office.

I'm in Atlanta, GA and recently when I went to the post office, the clerk told me that some panes they could break up and sell by the half sheet and other they could not break up at all. Maybe, it all depends on the clerk and the post office.