Ebay postage stamps

[Eoghan2009]

I ahd an interesting conversation at the post office - postmen often get given stamps as a perk of the job.  Needless to say they dont use them on the whole which creates a secondary market.  I am seeing stamps (admittedly in volume) at half price?

 

Anyone experience of this?

[inkstainedruth]

No, can't say that I have.  But the UK and the US may have different rules (my husband's younger brother is Postmaster for a small town in southeastern Massachusetts).  
I do know that at one point you could get postages stamps at some stores (I don't mean the ones for collectors, I mean currently in use ones).  I remember seeing a sign for them at the local Sam's Club (a membership club where you can buy stuff in bulk quantities which is a sub-company of Walmart).  Not sure if that's still the case -- once the local BJ's Warehouse open I mostly have transferred my allegiance, although there are a few things that Sam's carries that BJ's doesn't.  But for me, it's just as easy (and, for me, a shorter trip) to go to the main Pittsburgh Post Office -- even if I do have to slow down to a crawl over the speed humps the city installed on the way there.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Strega]

The idea of stamps going for half-price on ebay sounded kind of unlikely to me so I googled around and found threads about counterfeit stamps on ebay, often for around half price, including free shipping from China, but I wasn’t able to find anything about postal systems giving stamps to employees.  So, I remain suspicious.

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the heads up.  I collected postage stamps when I was a kid but didn't have anything really valuable.  I think we gave my collection away at some point (maybe when I was in college, or later, when I was getting married).

My dad was going to get me one that was on a postcard sent to where he worked from somebody in Mali -- but then discovered that it had been pinned to a cork board right through the middle of the stamp.... 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[DrPlush]

As I understand it, counterfeit US stamps are a big problem and any Forever or (Global Forever) stamps on eBay at less than face value are likely fake. (But also it seems like the mail  may often still arrive? Someone I knew was informed their stamps were counterfeit after sending a bunch, so they kept track and it all arrived as normal.)

 

That said, vintage stamps (of whatever commemorative design) are fine. Buying those second hand is a common way to save money for people with a snail mail hobby, at least in Australia (where I am), the UK, and the USA. I like buying old stamp lots and end up with a lot of really interesting designs, but also some hideous ones, which is quite fun in itself!

[Eoghan2009]

Well I took my stamps down to the post office and had loads of folks verify them.  It took a few days but I was pleasantly surprised to find out they passed and were deemed kosher.  (So I bought some more)

 

I would recommend buying with PayPal so there is some come back and then getting them checked at the post office.

[Eoghan2009]

I might have to eat my words, despite the local post office verifying my stamps, they were a sheet of 99 where genuine stamps are on sheets of 100.  I will go back to the  

[Eoghan2009]

I love proverbs and the one currently sticking in my craw is "Fool me once..."

 

My 2nd class book has a margin on the wax paper separate from the eight stamps, with the faint water margin as a wave across the double page horizontally. Dull finish to the green stamps.  Look for only stamps with a dull green finish on waxed paper with a faint water margin "wave" across both pages.

My EBAY 1st class has a bolder water margin in the wax paper running in vertical bands.  The paper edge on the page is part of the page of eight which still has the rest of the paper around the stamps.  Slight gloss finish to the purple stamps