I Want To Use These For Postage.

Hi,
I want to use these stamps for postage.
I believe they are .34 cent stamps.
Can anyone verify that these are .34 cent stamps.
Thank you!

First class = 55 cents

A stamp was issued with that design with a 34c denomination on it in 2001. Yours, without any denomination, must have come later, and I believe it would still be 34c even without a denomination. I have some trouble imagining most postal clerks knowing this. I'd bet any normal envelope with that stamp on it would go through the mails with little problem even today -- unless it has some kind of electronic means of triggering itself as it goes through a cancelling machine. If it said "Forever" none of this would matter since Forever stamps pay First Class postage, well, forever no matter what you originally paid for them.

Today you'll need additional postage to pay the current 55c First Class rate, 21c in fact. Or just use two stamps which is what I do. The Postal Service can use the extra few cents.

The October 21, 2019 issue of Linn's Stamp News showed all the nondenominated US stamps including the First Class ones. The article stated that the First Class designation meant its value would always be the same as when issued. Therefore, yours are worth 34c. Only Forever stamps vary with the current first class rate.

This pane of 20 is Scott #3449, issued December 15, 2000. Along with a Statue of Liberty stamp and a Flowers issue, these stamps were issued in anticipation of a postage rate increase that was undetermined at the time. The same design with a 34 cent denomination (Scott #3469) was issued February 7 of 2001, after the rate increase was settled at 1 cent. Many regular issues were done like this before the Forever stamps came about, beginning in 2007. Your stamps retain their 34 cent value.

Yes, it is a 34-cent stamp.

OOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSS!

Apologies - I stand corrected!

I would have used them one stamp per envelope today and not known the difference.

Back to my revenues in philatelic shame....

Thank you to all of you for your comments.

I have a bunch of these in my stash to use as postage,at different rates, but I'm assuming no one would know their value and it wouldn't go through.

While I do not advocate this, any letter with a tagged stamp when dropped in a blue box will be handled completely by machine until it finds its way to a delivery-sequence tray with your letter carrier at your curb who will be looking at the address portion of the letter. There is an extremely high chance it will pass successfully through the USPS without ever being noticed.

How complicated! Here, a first or second class stamp issued, say, thirty years ago, is still appropriate for first or second class use today. I pity the poor employee who theoretically needs an encyclopaedic knowledge of stamp issues and postal rates to determine whether the correct stamps have been used.

It doesn't say Forever, soooo $.34 is the value.

Jack Kelley

Along the same lines, can "Class" postage stamps still be used?

It is a pain to figure out what some of these stamps are valued at. The "make-up stamps in particular need some rate research.

A handy visual reference chart for this and all of the letter stamps, makeup stamps, etc.:

http://alphabetilately.org/G2.html

Thanks Dan!