New US Postage Rate Tool

I've added a new feature to Stamp Smarter, a US postal rate tool. I set it up so that you simply type in a date and it will return the USA first class and post card rates for that date; this seems to be easier than spending time to look it up and then pouring through some tables to find it? It covers the years 1847 through current date.

It will also return a link back to the 1847usa web page that is applicable for definitive stamps of that era. There are also provisions to add in US international rates but I do not have that populated yet.

If you have the time, please check it out and let me know if it can be improved in any way. For example, is there any value in covering years before 1847? Hopefully there will be some SCF feedback before it goes more public.

http://www.stampsmarter.com/postalr...landing.html
Thank you,
Don

Many thanks! I`ll have a look!

I like it, thanks!

You might want to tweak the input instructions...

Date format MUST be d/m/yyyy; for example 3/14/1847 or 11/2/1955

Eagle

Or you could go ISO, and allow people to enter YYYYMMDD

IkeyPikey, this website and stampsmarter are used internationally. Why drag ISO nonsense into this?
I worked for a national firm in the nineties that went ISO. Now they almost don't exist any more. Not that ISO was the main culprit, but they tend to go overboard.
Everyone in the whole world goes with day-month-year, and guess who the exception is?

Peter

Don, Consider adding domestic registry rates and domestic air mail rates?

It misses the distinction of April 15, 1925 - June 30, 1928 when postal cards were 1 cent a postcards were 2 cents.

John,
Thank you for the info, it has now been incorporated.

Al E.,
Good ideas, thank you. I'll look into these possible enhancements.

Peter and ikey,
I vacillated over this issue. The data was entered into an SQL database and is being called by the ASP web page. My first step was to use Excel and then import the data over to SQL. Opps, Excel stored dates as serial numbers and chokes on dates earlier than 1900 (treating dates before 1900 as serial numbers and those before 1900 as text!). And as Peter correctly pointed out, this is the world wide web. I had to make a decision, so I went with what you see. Thank you for the input, I will take a look at improving this behavior. I'll look into appending a new field with dates stored differently, and then add the ability for users to chose either date format.

Eaglebub,
I am a bit unclear on the instruction tweak you are suggesting. Is it possible you might be able to clarify this for me? Thanks.

Don

Don, most helpful!

I would like to suggest that your page include a bit of background information to add to the rates shown. For instance, the domestic letter rates from July 1, 1863 through June 30, 1885 were for one-half ounce. Also, beginning September 14, 1975, additional ounces were charged a lower rate. Since July 15, 1979, a surcharge has been added for non-standard envelope sizes.

I wonder, too, if 'domestic' should be defined.

Your WWI war rates seem not to have the correct start/stop dates.

To be honest, I don't see the advantage of this versus other existing rate resources - yes, the various commonly available tables.

Letter rate for November 2, 1917 through June 30, 1919 = 3 cents per ounce.

More info:

Privately printed cards did not qualify for a special postage rate until July 1, 1898. Since then, the rates for postcards have been the same as for stamped cards (produced by the Postal Service) except for the period from April 15, 1925 to July 1, 1928.

On January 10, 1999, the Postal Service increased the price of stamped cards (formerly called "postal cards") to one penny more than the postage rate in order to pay for the paper and printing of the card. The additional charge increased to two cents on January 7, 2001, to three cents on May 12, 2008, and to four cents on January 27, 2013. In 1994, in addition to regular stamped cards, the Postal Service began selling higher-cost stamped cards with collectible artwork, called premium stamped cards.

KGB,
Thank you very much for the additional info, I'll update it tomorrow. If you see any other corrections, additions, or improvement please not hesitate to let me know.
Don

Don,

You have the instruction as; d/m/yyyy, it is only taking M/D/yyyy

Here's something odd that I found in a postal guide from 1922. I'm not sure I even understand it!

Regarding first class mail:

"The Rate is Two cents for each ounce or fraction thereof, except that for letters deposited at offices that do not have carrier or rural delivery services for delivery at office where deposited, the rate is One cent for each ounce."

51studebaker,

Two things I noticed:

1) I typed in 10/05/2015 and nothing happened.
It seemed to want 10/5/2015 but didn't give any type of error message or any message at all. It gave the impression that it was a non-working web page. I've never used a web form that didn't take a leading zero in the day field.

2) Typing in 10/5/2015 I got:

First Class Rate 49C
Post Card Rate 35C
Comments
Click Here To Learn More About Stamps Of This Era*

There are two issues:

A) Clicking on 'Click Here To Learn More About Stamps Of This Era*' does nothing.

B) After the postage rate went to 49 cents I was asked to drop off someones business mail off for the. The letters were franked with 48 cent Stamps.com postage stamps. I told them they were short and the postal clerk that day agreed, but in fact the post office now has a discount for meter rate 1oz letters (which includes stamp.com) You might want to add a field for the 48 cent rate or at least place it in the comment field.