Hi again Ali!
This entire thread is just reminding me how much I dislike the Canada Post website, honestly!
This document (and the fact that no domestic mail with .92 cents worth of stamps on it has ever been returned to me) supports my contention that the domestic postage rate is .92 cents: 2022_LM-e.pdf (canadapost-postescanada.ca)
Multiple other sites say this as well, but I spent some time trying to find it on a Canada Post document. It shouldn’t be so difficult!
The idea of charging two different prices for a P stamp, depending on whether they were purchased individually or in a booklet, only occurred to Canada Post a few years ago, long after they started issuing P stamps. Once on a letter, a P stamp is valued at .92 cents - that’s why, when using a combination of older stamps, they only need to add up to .92, not $1.07.
It’s all almost as infuriating as the pen scribble cancellations…
I asked on the Canada Post subreddit, and a frequent poster there (citing “real life experience” as his source of authority) said:
92 cents is the cost of a Lettermail under 30 g. As you said, the extra 15 cents is a “nuisance tax” that disappears right into the cash drawer of the post office.
[If you are gathering denominated stamps for a Lettermail, you need to make a 92. If you want to use a permanent stamp for other products, think of it as a 92-cent stamp. For example, 3 stamps would pay for a product that costs $2.76.]
I feel that what I posted very clearly says that it is $1.07 and I will continue to go with that. It directly says meters and booklets are a discount. If others want to do differently, that’s cool but I thought the Find A Rate info was pretty definitive coupled with the postal workers directly confirming it. I agree everywhere else it is stated is ambiguous.
I also find a similar confusion with the Community P+10 stamps!
Is the 10 cents a donation? Or is the stamp worth 1.02$ when you combine it?
I always thought it was a donation, which is fine, but then why write P+10 on the stamp?
What I find interesting is even though it’s so ambiguous, or perhaps because it’s so ambiguous, Canada Post delivers anyway. When I first started I assumed a P stamp had to be valued at the highest cost it’s sold at ( which was $1.05 at the time, so I combined P stamps with other values making $2.71 ,to my thinking, but really underpaying for international post. All the cards arrived anyway. At that time, if combining smaller values for domestic post, I used enough to make $1.05 worth of postage. Then I saw that longer term postcrossers only used 92 cents of smaller value stamps to send domestically which puzzled me. So I started using smaller value stamps to create 92 cents for domestic post and only valuing a P stamp at 92 cents for international post. All the domestic cards arrived, and continue to arrive, with 92 cents of smaller value postage.
Honestly I think Canada Post employees don’t have the time or inclination to add up small value stamps so if you’re even in the ballpark your card will be delivered.
Yep, I just find it funny and needlessly confusing that they put it on the stamp as P+10. Charge the extra dollar per book for donation sure, but have the stamps just marked as P.
Canada Post makes it confusing in the way they present it, but you can verify that $.92 is the value of a P stamp on their published price sheet (https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/doc/en/support/prices/consumer-prices.pdf). In the note at the bottom of page 17 of the linked document, it states, “The PermanentTM stamp is a non-denominated stamp with a postage value of $0.92.”
I’ll just leave that there. Honestly, I think this is the case, but I don’t know. And @littlesthobo (amazing username by the way, “I understood that reference”) has at least as much evidence in her side of the argument. I doubt we’ll be able to resolve this to everyone’s satisfaction.
I’m a tech writer, and Canada Post’s evident inability (or unwillingness) to write a clear and unambiguous explanation of the two rates is driving me nuts from a professional standpoint alone!
Assuming for the moment the cost is actually $0.92, it’s almost as though leaving it ambiguous enables Canada Post to get more $ without actually lying about postage costs
P.S. I wish Canada Post would say something like this in simple text (not as cleanly written as it could be, but I’m in a hurry so…), depending on which is the case:
A) The cost of a letter under 30g is $0.92. The “P” (Permanent) stamp, which has this value, is available only in booklets. If you wish to purchase a single stamp, however, it will cost you $1.07 (which includes a surcharge for buying stamps singly).
OR
B) The cost of a letter under 30g is $1.07, and stamps may be bought singly at this rate. The “P” or Permanent stamp, which may also be used on such letters, can be purchased only in booklets at a discounted price of $0.92 each. If a “P” stamp is combined with other postage, it is valued at $1.07.
OR
C) The cost of a letter under 30g is $1.07, and stamps may be bought singly at this rate. The “P” or Permanent stamp, which may also be used on such letters, can be purchased only in booklets at a discounted price of $0.92 each. If a “P” stamp is combined with other postage, it is valued at $0.92.
That’s the thing. It’s driving me crazy. I know the average person wouldn’t care but precision is very important to me. It’s just how I am. So it seems utterly ridiculous that Canada Post wouldn’t be direct with their information.
More likely than not (I haven’t bought a single stamp myself so I’ll take your word for it). But if so, it’s still a stamp that costs 92 cents when bought in a booklet….
Yes, I could’ve worded it better. Like I said, I wrote it in a hurry, to try to express the different possibilities. Feel free to rewrite the 3 options. Maybe there is a fourth I haven’t thought of
We’re going in circles here, so I’m going to politely check out. If I find anything 100% unambiguously worded and it’s from Canada Post, I’ll pop back in to let everyone know.
Asking the Canada Post bot, there’s finally a concrete answer!
Regardless of the rate you purchase at, be it $0.92 or $1.07, the value it is accepted at is $1.07 when used in conjunction with other stamps:
