Cheap Postage Stamps Compared To Everything Else
These days, almost nothing is cheap. Heck, I used to pay a quarter for a soda and a buck to see a movie. Ah, memories of my care-free youth. But, I digress. Right now, to send a regular first class envelope is forty-one cents, and for a post card it is twenty-six cents. Some would call that reasonable, others would say it's a bargain, and still others would call it outrageous. Yet, the United States Postal Service still issues low rate (cheap) postage stamps. Now, why would they do that? The answer is simple: people like to save money. When the postal rate increases, it is always in very small increments: a couple of cents at the most. As a result, people are inevitably left with a bunch of stamps that are no longer enough to pay for a letter. Of course, recently the Postal Service issued the so-called "Forever Stamps." Once you buy them, they are good for all time. Still, lots of people have all manner (denominations) of old stamps. So, what are their options? Well, they can toss the stamps, use two on a letter, or (the much preferred way) add a stamp (or two) to make up the difference.
As a result, the USPS came up with a very simple means of helping people: they started printing stamps of low denominations, anywhere from one cent up five. By using these in conjunction with a stamp of higher value, a person can send a letter. Also, there's always the situation where a person is sending a letter that's over an ounce. Once beyond that magic amount, the postage goes up. Here again, low cost stamps come in handy with making up the difference. Something else to consider is that a cheap stamp does not necessarily have to be one with a low denomination. In the 1930's, Germany was suffering terribly. Between their crushing defeat in World War I, and the economic upheaval of the Great Depression, the nation was suffering from hyper-inflation. Not just inflation, hyper-inflation. Prices literally rose hour by the hour. And, this extended to their postage stamps. The price of one stamp went from thousands of Marks to hundreds of thousands to millions to billions of Marks! Now, were these stamps valuable? Not a bit. They were almost completely worthless. Is it any wonder Hitler was able to take over? So, in a rather odd sense, the cost of a country's stamps helps to give a rough indication as to its economic health. A cheap stamp isn't only a stamp of low cost; it can also refer to its true value. Fortunately, in this day and age, at least in this country, cheap stamps are just low cost stamps that people use to make up the difference between the stamps they've got and what it costs to send a letter. |