Saturday, May 19, 2012

Old Stamps on New Mail





Old United States stamps are still valid for postage. When buying postcards through the mail, it is not too unusual to receive them in an envelope bearing a variety of old stamps.

The first group of stamps above was on a large mailer sent via media mail. I received these this week and the May 12 postmark is visible. There isn't a readable postmark on the second group, but I know I received it not too long ago. This is a graphic demonstration of inflation in postage prices--each of these 6¢ stamps would have been sufficient for a first class letter when the stamp was issued.

These are the stamps shown:

Group 1
  • 33¢ Legends of Baseball (10 stamps from a series of 20 stamps), 2000
  • 39¢ Quilts of Gee's Bend (1 stamp from a series of 10 stamps), 2006
  • 4¢ Dag Hammarskjold (former secretary general of the United Nations), 1962

Group 2
  • 6¢ Fort Snelling (Minnesota), 1970
  • 6¢ Christmas (painting of Angel Gabriel by Van Eyck), 1968
  • 6¢ Explorer Father Marquette, 1968


This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog




7 comments:

  1. Imagine being able to mail something for 6c!!
    I am not a baseball fan, but I recognize almost all of hhose names.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, amazing stamps! I especially like the baseball stamps. Unfortunately for us here, some old stamps (late 1990s) can not be used anymore.


    Postcards Crossing

    ReplyDelete
  3. I enjoyed all these especially the baseball heroes and the Fort Snelling stamps.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Balanced against the fact that postage has risen so much the baseball stars do look magnificent grouped together.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have seen that Christmas Angel stamp before. As with you, someone using old postage on a new letter. Ah, inflation.
    Thank you for participating!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I haven't seen any of these stamps before!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...