53 thoughts on “Sucker for Stamps”

  2. Yes. Back in the days of the dinosaurs if you wanted to send a physical piece of paper from one location to another you had to fix a stamp to it. I don’t know why they’re called postage

    Like

    Reply

    1. I think (without doing research) that letters were carried by stage coaches in earlier times. The mail moved from one “post” to another, with distances divided by “stages” so the horses could be rested or switched. By association, then, sending a letter became “posting” it and the stamp on the letter became “postage.”

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. I think the term for moving from one post to another is probably correct, but started much earlier and migrated here from England. I remember in Jane Eyre, she walked into town to post a letter, (Don’t ask me why I remember this – but I have read it multiple times…)

        Like

        Reply

  3. Husband bought some particularly unattractive stamps with Janis Joplin on them. He likes to get stamps that he can use as statements or to provide irony when he mails things.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I will admit to postage snobbery. I almost always have five or six different varieties of stamps and bills, the few that I still pay by check, always get my least favorite stamps.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    2. During the Vietnam war, patriots began displaying American flags everywhere, especially in decal form on car windows. Those of us who opposed the war borrowed that symbolism, only we presented the flag upside down to signify how wrong things had become. The main stamp at that time showed an American flag. I can’t guess how many letters and bills I sent out with upside down flags in the upper right corner.

      Like

      Reply

  4. i too am a stamp fan
    i saw the eclipse and already had 5 pages of star trek there were others i liked too
    national parks is a favorite planets too
    they pick good people to celebrate. sarah vaugh, jonas saulk, marilyn, elvis, are memorable favorites
    dylan, ee cummings, captain kangaroo, me rogers, jim henson, the beatles, yo yo ma, ely,mn, lanesboro, brule wisconsin banff jasper taos santa fe, leave it to beaver, donna reed
    sauerkraut, raspberries, watermelon, veggie dogs, how about hogs in general and cats and fish and otters and clouds and mushrooms and celebrate great leaders like ghandi and tutu and how about gene wilder and reds foxx and richard prior and lenny bruce and jonathan winters and robin williams carl reiner mel brooks jimmy stewart merle oberon claudette colbert myrna loy clark gable anthony quinn barbara streisand,
    would be choices
    more to come

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

        1. Okay, a stamp for them AND one for Pete Seeger. Pete stands for all that is good in the USA, in my opinion.

          Like

  5. My favorites are animals and birds on stamps – loved that Christmas set that had a cardinal as one… and there was a set once with characters from literature – I’d like to see more of that. But anything done artistically catches my eye.

    Like

    Reply

  6. Alas, I am a buy-a-roll-of-Forevers kind of person.

    How I got to be so utilitarian I will never know. Maybe because stamps are for bills at my house. If I crafted beautiful cards, I would probably love the idea of great stamps.

    All the currants (black and red) and the gooseberries are ripe. Let’s see if jelly actually happens or if I just toss them in the freezer per usual (I do eventually use them through the winter, but I can feel my ancestresses sadly shaking their heads at me).

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    1. I need 5 cups of current juice for jelly. This year we had enough red currents for 4 cups. It is our largest harvest to date. I think I will add another kind of juice and make jelly.

      Like

      Reply

      1. I found a recipe that combines black currants and gooseberries to apporximate jostaberries, and since it is Canada Day (which seems to be where jostaberries come from), I feel it is “meant”.

        I suppose you could always just scale down the rest of the ingredients…..

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        2. Jostaberries are a hybrid cross between black currents (Johannisbeeren) and two types of gooseberries (Stachelbeeren). The name Josta is derived from the first letters of the respective berry names in German. (I had to look this up, by the way.).

          Liked by 2 people

        3. I looked them up, too, Renee. Had never heard of them before. The Danish word for gooseberries is stikkelsbær, so the exact word the German’s use, and meaning pricklyberries. The Danish word for black currants, however, is solbær, meaning sunberries. Don’t ask, I have no idea.

          Liked by 1 person

  7. I can’t remember the last time I paid a bill via mail, so my postage usage is extremely limited. Even so, it seems, the guys at my local post office, always haul out the same boring postage stamps when I need some. They must not be enthusiastic about the variety of stamps offered. In fact, I wasn’t aware that so many different “forever” stamps existed. https://store.usps.com/store/browse/subcategory.jsp?categoryId=forever-stamps

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I still pay the phone and the cable bill with a check because I find that I have to argue with them several times a year about the bill and so I don’t want the money coming out automatically. Just had a disagreement with the cable company this past month.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. I pay my/our bills electronically but NOT automatically in most cases. Things like our utility bill I want to stay on top of so I’m aware of our usage, so each month I have to go in and remit those. Same is true for garbage disposal, credit card and other bills that may vary from month to month. Monthly contributions to MPR, tpt, and other organizations we support, I put on automatic monthly payments for a year. At year’s end, I go in and reassess what those payments should be and change them if deemed appropriate. A box of checks last a loooong time at our house, and if I bought stamps the way tim does, I’d have to put them in my will.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  9. I once got on a bus to downtown San Francisco without enough fare, and the driver let me sell two or three stamps to a passenger for the rest of the change I needed… It was 1969, and research shows that a first class stamp was 6 cents.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  10. Wow, you all still use lots of stamps? I haven’t used any for ages, but I think there are some in the desk drawer somewhere. Even my bills that aren’t auto-payed, I pay online, so no need to have stamps to pay bills. I’m totally utilitarian when it comes to stamps – definitely get the forever stamps because I know I won’t use them all before the price increases, and I don’t really care what the stamps look like. I’m sure my life would be enriched some if I bought pretty stamps, but I never think of it.

    However I do plan to frame some pictures and put them on the living room wall so I’m not totally oblivious to aesthetics.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Hi Kids—

    The Post Office use to sell Bugs Bunny stamps. I bought the commemorative batch of those. And there was trucks, and circus’ and wasn’t there famous B&W images or something? I can’t remember any more. We’ve had the Breast Cancer ones and the Forever ones.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  12. I had to get some of those Star Trek stamps too! And I got the Wife-Without-Hardware a set of the Wonder Woman stamps.

    …hmmmm…not sure what else I’d like to see on stamps. How about classic Laker ore boats? …maybe i could sell the post office some of my old boat pics…

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  13. The post office once did some stamps with puppies and kittens on them, a spay & neuter awareness thing. I have a thermal cup that has those stamps pictured on it. The stamps were not Forever stamps, and they were 37 cents, so it was a while ago.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  14. Some of my favorite stamps were a set that came out in 2010. They were “Cowboy Stars of the Silver Screen”. Movie posters of Tom Mix, William S. Hart, Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    2. Hi, Rita, welcome. As a public service announcement, I’m pretty sure the post office isn’t open today, but if you’re in Minnesota, you can now buy alcohol on Sundays.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

      1. Yeah, I realized it was Sunday before I left the house on my “Trek”, and I’m all the way down here in Texas. Where my little town just passed the bill that we could even have hard liquor sold in town. I think you can beer after noon on Sundays but don’t quote me on it.

        Liked by 4 people

        Reply

  17. i have a problem with the stamps and the location of the valuable little pages after purchase.
    they came out with abstract expressionist stamps a year ago. i decided to buy all the stamps id need for the rest of my lafe and do it with abstract expressionist stamps. bought 100 pages. i have no idea where they are. i find little brown bags with 20 or 30 pages of stamps regularly going through office supplies. i used to buy regular and also 2 dolalr 3 dollar 5 dollar stamps to send stuff before i started buying all my ebay postage online with ebay. boring but saving a fistull on each shipment.

    Like

    Reply

      1. Yes, and one of the reasons I don’t buy Christmas presents during the summer. By the time Christmas rolls around, I’ve lost track of them, or even every memory of having bought them in the first place.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply
  19. Pingback: Sucker for Stamps — Trail Baboon – Business Startup-Bay Area

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.