Uncle Sam is Watching !

A recent article in Linns Stamp News shows actions taken by USPost to discourage the re-use of postage stamps. The stamps were probably cut from a return paid envelope that wasn’t wanted and affixed to the envelope shown. It is common in the US for organizations such as the Disabled Veterans Association to provide such envelopes for donors to contribute. An overzealous postal employee probably assumed that the stamps had already been used, applied the interesting cachet and returned the envelope to the sender.

Top Europa stamps for 2009

Liechtenstein’s ₣1.30 stamp was selected from over 60 others featuring astronomy as last years favourite Europa stamp. The stamp depicts a supernova with a white dwarf and was printed on special paper with a hologram foil.

In second place was a pair of 80c stamps from Finland showing a fantasy landscape including Saturn, the moon, a comet, a lunar eclipse and a flock of birds in flight.

News in Brief

* Royal Mail has appointed a Canadian, (Moya Green) as its new Chief Executive.In the meantime, the company announced a £400 million profit (26% rise on last year) in spite of a nationwide decline in mail of 7% and an increase in mail handled by competitors of 20%.

The US Postal Service is to issue Forever Stamps.
These will be modeled on Canada Post’s Permanent Stamps that have a large ‘P’ inside a maple leave instead of a denomination. New Zealand’s Kiwistamps have a similar concept.

The US Postmaster general has urged Congress to allow the end of Saturday deliveries, saying that it would save $5 billion a year.
The Postal Workers Union has claimed that the overtime needed to deliver Saturday’s mail on Mondays would cancel out any savings.

Australia Post has already dropped Saturday deliveries and NZPost is exploring the same option – or maybe even going to “three times a week” !

* Japan's cabinet has approved a bill to restructure the postal service and scale back plans for privatization of the postal service. The bill includes a requirement that the government retain at least a third of the shares in Japan Post.

* Try putting ‘stamps’ in a search under Google News and you are led to a horde of sites featuring the Stamps Football League in Calgary, Canada - not a postage stamp in sight !