The price of a first-class postage stamp in the U.S. is going from 46 cents to 49 cents on January 26. But MInnesotastan doesn't like to pay full price for snail mail postage, so he tell us how to get stamps at a discount. First, he goes through the many ways you can get out of paying for postage that are illegal and not recommended. Then there are the legal discounted stamps, which means the U.S. Postal Service has been paid for them, but they haven't been used for mail -yet.
Discount postage exists primarily because of stamp collectors. When I was growing up in the 1960s, the popularity of the hobby was rising; advertisements for collectible stamps were in every issue of Boy's Life and in comic books. Increased participation in the hobby generated drove prices higher, so many collectors began to put away sheets and blocks of mint stamps as "investments."
However, as the decades went by, the interests of young people shifted toward pastimes that required electrical outlets. The demographic profile of the average collector got older, so that now many of the stamps saved as investments are coming back on to the market, and are for sale at prices below their "face" value.
Find out where to look for these discounted stamps at TYWKIWDBI.