*major* Canada Post News (Dec 11/13)

I just did an online purchase of the Oct-Dec 2013 quarterly pack and also the 2013 annual collection.
My order went through without a problem...yet. Lets hope I get the order.

I just got back from one of our local Costcos and they are still selling "P" stamps.

I do think tho, that this postal increase will have many collectors rethinking the number and stamp formats that they purchase. I'm seriously considering just buying the quarterly packs and no longer worry about blocks, panes, souvenir sheets and booklets. It is just getting too expensive.

xyyz, Canada Post does show the Oct-Dec 2013 quarter pack and the 2013 yearly pack as available; it's the quarter packs preceding the Oct-Dec 2013 pack that are now unavailable. I would suggest that anyone who desires either of the above do so asap as they also may become unavailable or rise in price to meet the increase in rates.

Yes Bee See you are correct. That's exactly what Canada Post said.

"I do remember reading somewhere when the Permanent stamps first came out, Canada Post listed "fine print" rights of termination of the P stamps without notice, or something like that."

I just finished my lunch time post office tour. Here is what I got:

The local Retail (Corporate) P.O. will not sell any P stamps to customers as regular postage. They WILL sell commemoratives in small quantities to collectors, even definitive booklets. They WILL sell any quarterly packs they have in stock (they had most 2012 to 2013), and annual souvenir albums.

Shopper's Drug Mart will sell anything they have to collectors, but a maximum of one roll of P stamps per customers.

Safeway and Save-on-Foods only have P booklets, and are selling as usual.

So from a philatelic point of view, this should not cause any abnormal increase in the value of any P stamps.

Lorddenning, Shopper's Drug Mart IS selling the 2013 St. Anne Christmas "P" booklets to customers. It was the only P stamp in their display case. The person in front of me bought three of them and stuck most on Christmas cards right at the counter.

CORRECTION: These are NOT P stamps, they are 63c. The value is in red, and my crappy eyesight for small print made it LOOK like the common red P symbol

I can't imagine how expensive the annual collections will get from here on out with the new rates. probably $150-200 range IF they keep making them at all. Time will tell

All that was left at my local store was about 20 Superman booklet and a couple quarterly pack. They said all the rest of their P stamp inventory was sold to customers who wanted P stamps in large numbers today

Could this be nothing more than a new marketing scheme. 39 collectors have posted comments regarding the removal of the "P" stamps. How many made a mad dash to their local PO or store to buy the "P" stamp in any configuration that was still available.....booklets, coils, quarterly packs etc. This is somewhat similar to the recent removal of the Kiosk vending machine. Within a week you will be hard pressed to buy a "P" stamp.

Anyone agree or am I just to suspicious.

I did not buy any P stamps, I just bought a few collectors packs that I was missing and some Vario pages. As I said above I doubt any P stamps will have any extra value.

However, the latest rumour I heard is that new "P" *type* stamps will be out in March, and any mail bearing old P stamps or old valued stamps will have to pay the $1.00 rate instead of the 85c rate. Now THAT will have serious impact on those who rely on discount postage or use old accumulations as postage.

What's wrong with this plan by CP to raise the letter rate. We are losing business to other forms of communication so lets make the customer pay more to mail a letter. So we have fewer customers but they are paying more for postage so that means greater profits. CP should be encouraging customers to use their mail service and this doesn't work by increasing the postage rate from 63c to 85c or $1.00

Kind of makes you wonder about some of the recent printing errors. Nothing like an error to get collectors to open their wallets, but that is another story.

My view is that Canada Post created a contract with the buying public when it entered into the Permanent stamp arena. It guaranteed that the 'value' of the P stamps would automatically increase with rate increases. The benefit of this to Canada Post was increased stamp sales. If a 'new' type of P stamp is issued and the 'old' P stamp requires additional make-up postage then, in my honest opinion, Canada Post has breached its contract with the public. Who on earth would ever trust Canada Post and the 'new' Permanent stamps knowing what befell the 'old' P stamps?

I was thinking about the cost to mail a letter back in 1950 (3 cents) and was wondering how that compares to today, in Canada (63 cents), let alone the proposed increase to 85 cents!

The following is the yearly inflation graph, year-on-year for Canada from 1950 to 2012.



Using this year-on-year data and entering 3 cents in 1950, the result in 2012 is 30 cents. Less than half the current cost to mail a 1st class letter in Canada.

So, when Canada Post had a monopoly on the transfer of information within Canada they provided a very good deal. Now with more competition they are charging the consumer 2x the cost than in 1950 and are proposing to charge nearly 3x the 1950 cost.

Not a formula for success!

Back computing using this year-on-year data, and using the new 85 cent rate, this equates to a 1950 rate of 8.5 cents. Would Canada Post have survived if they had charged 8.5 cents for a 1st class letter in 1950?

I may be wrong, but my read of the announcement about the P stamps suggest that they are just "temporarily suspended" until the March 2014 postal rate increase when they will be put on sale again at the higher rate. In other words, CP doesn't want the public to hoard P stamps at the current rate and re-sell them for a profit after the new postage rates take effect.

If you read the last paragraph of the announcement posted below, CP has stated that:

Wt1 - that makes a lot of sense.
Also, why waste all the stamps that have already been printed, the packs, etc.
As you say, it may just be a temporary hold on "P" products until March.