Can You Overlap Stamps On An Envelope?

It occurs to me that you might be able to use enough low denomination postage to mail a letter, if you overlapped the stamps. Does the post office have rules that prevent this?

I have a Mexican cover where the stamps overlap a LOT, just enough to show the denomination. I have also seen a fair bit of overlap on revenue stamps on documents. Now to try to find that cover...Not sure what the UPU's official stance is.

No.

See Domestic Mail Manual section 604 paragraph 1.7:
https://pe.usps.com/text/DMM300/604.htm

The USPS does not like it. https://pe.usps.com/archive/html/dm...209/P022.htm see section 1.3

The only issue I'd think might cause a problem would be if the edge of a stamp sticking up can get caught in the machinery, ripping the stamp, clogging up the works, etc.

As a collector who still removes stamps from mail, I am usually appalled by this as well as the use of tape on stamps.

From the above link:




Interesting. I had always been told that overlapping was ok as long as the denomination of the overlapped stamp(s) were fully readable. Apparently not.

Notwithstanding Postal directives,
I have had 1000's upon 1000's of overlapped stamps from my dealer,
over 10 years, nary a one has been questioned by postal authorities in North America.

Denominations were always shown.

Gum arabic stamps can be separated successfully, with strange part postmarks, self adhesive cannot, and can only be discarded.

As ever, your mileage may vary.

This doesn't involve US stamps, but I received a CD a couple of years ago from Brazil with 5-6 overlapped stamps to fit its mailer. I soaked them and got all but one cut down by 1/3. Probably should have noticed beforehand that the overlapped stamps weren't thick enough to be full size.

The reason overlapped is not allowed is because you could be covering up a cancel on an already used stamp. I wonder if the foreign overlapped examples were done at a PO in front of or by a postal clerk so they knew the stamps were valid.

Keep in mind the regulations cited so far refer specifically to mail of U.S. origin. They do not apply to the two Canada examples shown or to any other country.

I can think of no one that seeks out postal regulations regarding placement of stamps before they peel/lick and stick.

There is another way to stuff a lot of stamps on one envelope which doesn't involve overlapping but like an "accordion". Like a coil of 20 stamps and you affix only the first stamp on the envelope and then fold up the other ones like an accordion.

It is also possible to overlap stamps such that only 1/10'th of each stamp is pasted down and the other 9/10'th is unattached--such that no stamps paste is actually pasted on another (sort of like dominoes). I received a package from Canada earlier this year which had around 100 copies of the same stamp pasted this way. I understand this technique may not be allowed in US per USPS regulations cited above.

It seems like this general problem of needing a whole lot of stamps to mail a letter/package might have been an actual problem in countries with very high inflation -- as opposed to philatelists using 75 year old stamps to mail around stamps to each other. Any historical examples of this having been the case, or have postal systems always been one step ahead of inflation?

The inflation period of Russia is a highly collectible postal history category. Envelopes were covered from stem to stern in stamps.

If I remember correctly, the Cyprus Post Office put an end to this practice about 15 years ago after they realised people were defrauding the system. Some telephone card collectors sending big and bulky packages at the time, started using used stamps and covering the cancellations with another used stamp and so on and finally adding a small denomination mint stamp as the last overlapping piece. It got so bad that they even found that some of the 'stamps' used were in fact just the piece of the stamp showing the face value and conveniently overlapped by another cancelled stamp etc.

Interesting discussion! I hadn't thought of the possibility of covering previous cancellations, but had considered how cut stamps could be disguised. And accordion folding is a clever concept, though the stamps would likely be damaged in transit.

Thanks for all the insightful comments!

In the last 2-3 years I have received mail from both Russia and Algeria with overlapping stamps. The Algerian piece was all one type stamp and the Russian one used 2 different values. They were all modern definitives. I would argue this could point to application at the post office as that was all the postage they had in stock. But again that is pure speculation.