The US Post Office is phasing out stamp vending machines.
They’re old, outdated, often broken. And it’s time to follow the digital craze and start buying online.
When stamp vending machines are taken out of Tennessee post offices for good by fall 2008, residents won’t have much of a choice.
I don’t buy my stamps online — never have. And I also don’t buy my stamps at grocery stores or places like the Mail Room, or UPS store (or whatever the heck they are called) — there is an added cost.
“These things are great when they work,” Sims said. “If I were at the grocery store and it didn’t cost more, I would buy them (stamps) there.”
Mostly, I like to look at the different stamps and then make my choice. I simply don’t buy the same style stamps each time. But, at the same time, I don’t want to design my own stamp, either. I don’t have that sort of time to waste. I guess I’m just part of the 7%’ers that will be forced to see a postal worker to buy my stamps, and, hold up the line of people behind me as I look over the designs before I make my choice.
But, I can’t help but wonder the direction the USPS has been taking. While email has dented the mailing industry, and businesses like UPS, FedEx, and DHL have shown us how slow the USPS is, the changes at USPS over the past few years aren’t exactly encouraging. There’s been something like 4 price hikes since 2000. Magazines were attacked by a rate hike that severely curtails specialty magazines ability to disseminate information. Worse yet, the latest hike caved to large corporate interests.
It’s these events that have led the cynic in me to come out, and believe there is a concerted effort to end the USPS in favor of fully privatized (established) companies.
are you an old enuf feminist to recall that time in the late 1970s or early ’80s when a woman in upstate new york began a postal service? and was pushed out of the biz by you know who. i’d google for this if i knew where to begin.
i love stamps, have a couple of pins with old ones–little purple ones of women, trylon and perishpere from 1933 world’s fair. always wondered why the u.s. and a. could not do better with design (consistently) like many other countries.
but i go on. -naomi
Naomi, I was in my late teens — early 20’s during that time, living in the mid-Hudson Valley. You triggered a memory that I believe I’ve heard of this. This was up around Schenectady, or there about, and she was doing local deliveries, I believe. I tried Kartoo’ing it, but didn’t find anything, either.
Years and years ago, when I was little , my Aunt & Uncle had gotten me started stamp collecting. I don’t know if I even have the book anymore, it may possibly be in my mom’s attic, if it’s still around, but I had (what I thought was) a fairly decent collection for not being completely serious about it. The colors and the designs from around the world were interesting, definitely leaving the US behind.
Stamps are fun, don’t get you out much, but they were great to sort through on a rainy or snowy afternoon.