What Would You Do If The USPS Demonitized Stamps?

A couple of recent comments here got me thinking. What would I do if the USPS demonetized stamps prior to the "forever" issues?

Although this is hypothetical, it does make some business sense. there would be a marginal increase in revenue. Collectors that use old stamps (some of which can be purchased for 80% of face value online) to reduce the cost of postage would be required to pay the current rate. It might also make some administrative sense. The USPS would no longer have to mess with un-tagged stamps.

I'm sure there would be a hue and cry from the philatelic community but, let's face it, we're a captive audience.

Like many of you I would be "stuck" with sheets of unusable stamps and the market price of older valued stamps (post 1940) would probably plummet as people try to dump their inventories.

Since I'm not concerned with the market value of my collection, I would see it as an opportunity to do some selective buying. With lower prices it might also encourage new collectors or it could discourage them. I don't know.

Would you change your collecting habits? If so, how.

Just curious.

Dan

wrong area for this discussion

I debated about in which forum to post this question. Since I am not discussing a specific US stamp but rather am interested in what a collector would do, American or foreign, I chose to post in the Main forum.

My experience here indicates that the moderators are a pretty savvy group. If they feel it is inappropriate for this forum, it will get moved.

Dan

I suspect that postal use of pre-1940 (or even pre-1990) postage is such an infinitesimal part of the mail flow that it is not even measured by the USPS today. FOIA, y'all?

The practical scenario in which demonetization might arise would be the sale of the USPS to a truly private party; in that case, we would need to clean-up the books, and put a hard number on the liability to honor all that old postage.

Were that to come 'round, I would expect the post office to set up a central office to receive old postage, and issue refunds - in the form of current postage. (This would not eliminate the liability, but it would fix its value.) The office would have to be central, as they would not want to train 200,000 clerks to spot forgeries, reprints, cleanings, et al ... and then ship the old postage to a central office for auditing. Duh.

<tangential_anecdote>

I was astonished to read this March 2009 statement, by Janet Yellin, to the Fed Open Market Committee:




Ha, ha, ha ... es.

I would not think that the USPS tracks things quite as tightly as The Federal Reserve, but I've got my petard handy, just in case.

</tangential_anecdote>

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Although this is a few years old now, this might enter into the picture as well:




Source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-kno...rvice/11433/

It would sure destroy the below face bulk mint postage stamp market since older stamps could no longer be used for postage.

In Europe, the grace period for use of old stamps during the switch to euro-denominated stamps varied from one country to another. The de-monetizing process really seems to have hurt the 1990's German stamps. Occasionally, you can still find sheets of them at very low prices on ebay. If de-monetizing were done in the U.S., I wouldn't be buying any postage, that's for sure. I would give it my best effort to use as much of the recent stuff {self-adhesive) as I could, and then I would be stuck with whatever was left over. I don't collect "mint" self-adhesive U.S.because of the non-archival quality. The self-adhesive material will stabilize at some point and bleed into the paper, thus creating what we recognize in the old weather vane Christmas stamp.

It would be interesting to see what the resulting "panic" usage would look like. Packages being mailed with full panes of stamps that look like wall paper, or completely wrapping the box.

"completely wrapping the box"

I've seen that already, and not only little boxes. Not necessarily sheets, but boxes literally covered in stamps on all 6 sides.

What would I do.

Hmm.. Panic, contact my congressional rep, never buy another US new issue.

When the US Postal Department last demonetized the first issues in 1851, I thought they traded in the old stamps for new ones. Or allowed for cash refunds (5 cents was a lot of money back then). If the USPS does the same, the below face bulk mint postage sellers could make more selling their inventory back to the USPS, rather than the 80% or so they sell for now.

Of course, they could just set a date where afterwards, only forever stamps would be used. How would that affect the post card rate, priority, and registered mail rates? Maybe they would stop issuing stamps for those rates.

It would depend on how Congress structures it. I doubt the USPS could do this without Congress approving. They can't even close a post office location without a new law.

They would probably do this as a cost cutting and saving measure since they would not have to provide any mail service for the demonetized stamps anymore.

Q/ Any idea of what percentage of the mail flow is franked with pre-1940 (OP's date) or even pre-1990 (my date) postage?

My guess remains that it would cost more to measure this mail than to deliver it.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Since when has that stopped a government action?

Domestic mail is already scanned. It shouldn't be too hard to kick a non-forever stamped letter out. After a billion or so dollars in cost overruns, I'm sure they'd get the hang of it.

I referenced the post 1940 date because this is what one usually sees as postage.

My reason for this topic came from recent comments that postage was no longer valid for click-and-ship mailing. The beginning of a death by a thousand cuts? While I think this is unlikely to happen, my experience at post offices indicates that postal clerks would much rather stick one of their labels on a letter or package than mess with stamps.

I was curious to see how stamp collectors would react to a demonetization. Would the stamps be treated like the dreaded CTOs? Would collectors no longer have as much interest in collecting them or would it attract new collectors because of the presumably larger supply and lower price on the market?

Dan

Bookbndrbob brought up an area I hadn't considered. The change to the Euro effectively demonetized national stamps. How did that affect collectors in those countries?

Dan

The wealthiest 1% needs to step up and offer to buy any unused stamp at face value. After all, they are the only collectors who have seen there collections skyrocket in value year in and year out.

They could recycle those stamps to make new stamp catalogs that show the increased value many issues would enjoy, and it would help them recoup a small part of their expenses. The rest would be a nice tax write off.

That makes me wonder how many billions? of dollars in unused US stamps are floating around...