USPS Automated Postal Center Holiday Mailbox Forever Postage

I don't recall seeing anyone post the new US Holiday Mailbox labels available at Automated Postal Centers with the designation as "Forever" stamps, so I thought I'd do so:



I don't generally collect these labels, and although some stamp collectors will balk at the whole idea of these labels replacing stamps, I was at a larger post office that had an APC, so I decided to get a couple of examples for my collection. At least they are attempting to make them a bit more colorful for the holiday season.

Incidentally, a fun fact about these labels is that the last three digits in the long number at the bottom of each example represents the actual date the stamps were purchased (beginning September 10, 2011). As the last three digits on these examples are 453, the issue date was December 6, 2012. (You can easily calculate this in a spreadsheet by entering the date 09/10/2011 in one cell and in another cell adding 453 to it to get the answer.)

wt1, it's kind of scary how much our minds think alike. You posted earlier about 12-12-12 (which I intended on doing this evening) and now, this!

I stopped by the post office this morning and also got a sheet of the mailbox stamps. It was my first time buying stamps this way and I found it quite interesting. It's too bad there aren't more options for picking the illustration, though.

Here are the stamps I purchased:

I am from a small town in the boondocks, and not at all familiar with these 'labels'. How come both of you have one stamp there that says "void" on it?

Peter

Anyone can direct the machine to printout any number of postage labels provided you hit the $1 minimum purchase requirement. As the labels can only be printed in pairs, if you order an "odd" number, the unused label is printed "VOID/NOT VALID FOR POSTAGE".

In my case, I printed 5 Forever Stamps at a cost of $2.25 (charged to my credit card, as the APC's only accept credit card payments). I didn't scan all of them I purchased. Actually, you can designate any amount of postage if you choose to not go with the $0.45 (Forever) amount. For example, say you had a bunch of $0.32 postcard rate (Aloha Shirt) stamps--you could print some $0.13 APC labels to use along with them and come up with the $0.45 first class postage rate (or any other rate you so choose).

This arrived in the mail today. It's the first letter I've received with one of these stamps.

I haven't seen that pictorial cancel either. However, the numbers will confirm that the APC Forever stamp was purchased on November 30, 2012 and applied later to the mailing for a December 8, 2012 postmark.

Wt1 thank you for that clear answer.
I believe for a couple of years the APS was using this kind of postage on their correspondence!

Peter

Have you seen the varieties of these mailbox stamps you've been discussing? The upper image is the stamp printed on blank labels that didn't have the mailbox image. The other is one of 7 total varieties where the post office loaded the mailbox labels but forgot to turn on the Christmas software (i.e., forgot to turn OFF the software that printed the six black and white images.

LN

Yes, these are fun errors - the first when they put in the new software for the mailbox stamps but didn't put in the mailbox paper, the second the other way around (new paper, old software).
Now the machines are all supposed to be back to the old paper with the black & white designs. Waiting on the next mulicolor design.