George Orwell's Future Of Postage Stamps?

The current concept of postage stamps by the USPS is to print a picture of something on a stamp, sell it, and destroy the ones that aren't sold. Why should they continue to do it this way? They make no significant income off of stamp collectors anymore. It costs more money to make a year's worth of stamps, than the USPS gets in the revenue from them.

In 2008, the USPS spent $78 million to produce $37 billion of stamps. The USPS then destroyed $2.8 billion in stamps for issues that went off sale or weren't sold. Since about 8% of the total value of stamps were destroyed, then we can assume about 8% of the cost (or $6 million) went into producing stamps that were never sold. As we have seen in other topics in this forum, this problem hasn't been solved.

What if one day when we went to the post office to buy stamps, we got only a blank white perforated sticky back sheet? We would then log on to the USPS website, download and print on these sheets a personalized bar-code for each stamp on the sheet. And that is what we would use to mail correspondence. Something similar to this is already being done by businesses for issues of bulk shipping, but not as simplified. But on the whole, to save money, wouldn't it be cheaper for them to stop printing stamps for us common folks, and put the work in our laps?

They could even charge an annual subscription to be able to print stamps from their website. This would pay for the perforated sticky back sheets. The log on information would enable the USPS to have return address, postage rate and any other necessary or desired information right in the bar-code.

All the USPS would have to do is maintain the site, and change the part of the bar-code that deals with postage rate when necessary. A change that would be universal for all bar codes for all log-ins.

I'm sure there would be problems with this concept, but someone would be smart enough to work them out. Examples might be the elderly and those who don't have computers, and envelopes that weigh too much. But the main problem would be... How much would it cost the USPS to make such a change, and how long would be the payback?

With stamp collecting beginning, I think, a long slow agonizing death due to the disinterest in the hobby by young people, and the horrendous financial problems with dealing with the present postage stamp concept, why continue to print stamps? Because they are pretty isn't the answer. We live in a colder more calculating society these days, and I am talking only cold, calculated business. (Please don't consider me guilty of high treason against the hobby). The only reason I can think of is...congressional approval.


-IBFS

Oh yea, the "do it yourself" philosophy of business, except I must correct you. We'll have to order those stickers from a government approved vendor ourself, after creating another username and password. If that's not fun enough, maybe a very special ink, expensive of course, to make sure it's all compliant. No matter we have to buy or won't have to buy to do all of this ourself, it's going to cost more than 46 cents a piece I betcha.

That annoyance aside, I don't think that is an accurate measure of the cost of the stamps. Someone may be able to help me, but I figured it's more along the lines of car production or money production, the cost is in the design and setting up the machines, the paper that is being "destroyed"(that's if it really even is) is minimal versus the earlier fixed costs. Secondly, even assuming the $6 million is accurate, which is the highest figure I'd accept as I believe it's lower, what's the percentage of that or where does that fit into the big picture? Supermarkets and restaurants toss away food, other products get scrapped, etc...what's acceptable?

Thirdly, we live in a very large country, with a lot of history, and a lot of things to commemorate. While luckily I don't get enough bills to buy all the issues, I can't be a proponent of stopping this vehicle of commemoration. I like putting the "stickers" on my outgoing mail.

Here's another statistic to compare with the above statement. According to the USPS OIG, in FY'2011 the USPS produced 21 billion stamps at a cost of $43 million. That comes out to $0.002 per stamp (about 2/10ths of a cent) to produce. Given all of the philatelic products that are sold with the assumption that many of the stamps will never see postal use but will be retained by collectors -- there's certainly a profit margin to be made by the USPS in producing stamps for various subjects for both collectors and private citizens.

Remember, too, the US Mail must be available to everyone. There are some parts of the US where internet service may not be available, or those in poverty that may not want or cannot afford computers and/or computer access. You also have to remember that there are people of all ages from the youngest child to the most elderly centenarians, including those in hospitals, nursing homes, vacationers and travelers that still need to use the US Mail and may not always have access to a computer.

Stamps still serve a vital need, even though it may be reduced in usage as compared to 20 or 50 or 100 years ago, but the need is still there and the USPS must accommodate everyone, not just the computer literate.

I got 11 pieces of mail today. Not a single one had a stamp on it. That's pretty typical...I may go several weeks without getting a stamp in the mail, and might go a couple of months without getting one I don't already have. I have one friend who sends me xmas cards, birthday cards, get-well cards, etc with a big wad of stamps from the 1940s or 1960s on it (she is the exception to the rule).

It's only a matter of time before stamps.com and similar sites take over for the printing of real stamps. I expect to see it in my lifetime.

Stamps as we know them will go the way of the dinosaur.

We already have metered mail. You go to the Post Office, they weigh and check your mailing and print-out a metered postage cancel, and away it goes. In the office you have metered machines that companies use to post their mail.

Why do we still have stamps?

If you want to make your own mailings from home, rather than go to the post office and purchase pre-printed stamps, you should purchase metered sticky postage labels in the amounts that you want (presumably for the correct amounts for domestic and international mail).

Why have the cost of guessing what the public wants by pre-printing postage stamps and then destroying those not purchased? They should only be printed when they are purchased.

My 2c worth.

- stamporator -

As I have said on here before, I love my small post office. Every item of mail that is sent by my post office from 1 oz. letter to a 20 pound box is sent only with stamps for postage. No meters present. Support you small local post offices if you have one.

I still use real stamps on my mailings: bills, cards, correspondence, everything. I use older stamps on my personal mail to friends and relatives because I enjoy finding the right combination of stamps for 46 cents of postage.

I have a small town post office and the person there loves to see my mail and will hand cancel it for me.
I continue to collect the dredded self adhesive stamps while looking for others to add to my collection.

Please do not forget to lick your stamps for the DNA collector's in the years to come!

KGV: I believe my DNA was already collected when I was born at the hospital.

It's probably been also collected whenever I've had a blood test or any fluid or body piece tested.

And aliens did land on the earth and they are colonizing Rozwell as we tap out our messages.

The 66 year anniversary of the Roswell incident report was 4 days ago. Have they made a commemorative stamp for this? 50 years would have been 1997.


-IBFS

I_B_F_S: No commemorative stamp was ever issued about the Roswell incident (probably because the government said it never happened), but the local USPS did have a pictorial cancel back in 1997 that became a local souvenir of sorts. You can still occasionally find the covers for sale at modest prices.

They're Coming They..........

It is my opinion that we are already using the next generation postal system, it is the internet. Postal systems primary purpose has always been to enable people to communicate with one another; between ubiquitous computing and the universal connection between our lives the need to transmit a piece of paper has become almost nil.

This leaves only parcel delivery as being really required and even this will begin to diminish as 3D printing technology improves and is further implemented over the next 15-20 years. When you need that spare part for your broken dishwasher, in the future you will just order it and the part will 'print' out on your printer. No delivery of the part will be needed.

But does this evolution spell the end of our hobby? My opinion is no; decades after transportation technology moved beyond carriages and towards the automobile plenty of folks still enjoy horseback riding and other equestrian hobbies. I see no reason that the inevitable evolution of communications technology philately should be any different.

Its worth mentioning the intangible political benefit of a government run postal system and postage stamps. Although maybe not relevant so much today, the printing of postage stamps by a government has nearly always been one of the first assertions of sovereignty. The loss that might be incurred by a postal system, including the printing and destruction of unused postage stamps is one of the intangible costs of running a government. As already was mentioned this loss also brings the somewhat more tangible benefit of ensuring equitable cost of communication between all parts of the country, that benefit being significantly diminished by private parcel delivery and the internet.

I meant to say above that you should think of the postal system and stamps as one of the propaganda arms of the government, exporting our culture and ideas to the world. Unfortunately, stamp design and topics generally such big time today, but its still a valid point. What does such a relatively intangible service cost? A prime example of the use of this propaganda machine were the stamps of the Champions of Liberty series. Even the recent baseball stamps export a message of life in the US.

Stamps do spread propaganda...look at the "Overrun Countries" series. What message could there be attached to those stamps except the obvious one? The same could be said for space stamps and others as well.

While there is no doubt that stamps do spread a message about life in the US, I doubt that there is a committee anywhere that mulls over the idea of "we want to spread such-and-such concept...what kind of stamp can we come up with that will help spread that idea?" Most of the time a stamp simply honors whatever it is dedicated to and the propaganda it spreads is merely secondary.