Postage

Back in the good old days, part of the excitement of getting a letter from another country was the exotic postage stamps. I suppose it would be so even now, for me, not that I get many letters from other countries. (R’s Scandinavian philatelic auction catalogs still come here, so I get those, at least.) Now that we have “forever” stamps, though, I don’t think they’re valid for international mail, even if you stick enough on to cover the cost of mailing to the other country – maybe the law has changed, but the last I’d heard, to make up the postage for international mail you have to have stamps with denominations written on them.

In Oakland, we lived near enough to a stamp dealer that it was easier to buy our postage from him, and then you could combine denominations of interesting old stamps to beautify your envelope. (I understand that not every country lets its people do this; stamps elsewhere apparently expire.)

Anyway, today I had four holiday cards to mail overseas, and I was determined to put proper stamps on them, not just metered stickers. Unfortunately, 12 people were ahead of me in line at the post office, so it took about 20 minutes. And guess what? They have international “forever” stamps, now, too! So I got to send my cards with these cute circular stamps on them. I wish I’d been in time to get “global holiday wreath” stamps, though.

Wow, I should be buying my stamps online! They have Harry Potter stamps!