Thank you for sharing! That’s good to know not to buy from there. Please don’t feel embarrassed or dumb. The site looks professionally made to mislead people.
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I’m no philatelist by any means, but did come across this video this past weekend by happenstance. It has some good conversation touching on a lot of the “why” being asked in this thread, but as well the main speaker does a great job at explaining and showing differences between genuine and bogus stamps, many times the latter appearing of better quality than the former, if you can believe that!
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I’ve been told that the two most common sources of stamps that are sold below the printed value are (1) USPS employee theft, and, to much lesser effect, (2) the sale of possessions after a company goes out of business or a person is deceased.
An inspired thief can easily hide a few 100-piece rolls of forever stamps in their pockets, $50+ per roll. And then, there are mega rolls. Look at this baby here (I found it online googling a large roll of stamps): 3,000 stamps in one roll that can fit in a bag. I’ve heard that this is the bulk of what we see sold online under the nominal value.
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Years ago, before the U.S.P.S. was issuing “forever” stamps, the post office was about to change postage rates and so wanted to dispose of millions of stamps with the old denominations. They trucked the stamps to a factory in Chicago that had a large incinerator, at which employees of the factory were supposed to destroy the stamps, while being monitored during the entire process by two postal inspectors. In spite of their responsibilities, the two postal inspectors had apparently decided to go to lunch, leaving the plant employees unsupervised, and, according to lore, there were, several weeks later, many thousands of postage stamps of the old (unincinerated) denomination being offered at steep discounts on the streets of Chicago.
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Thanks for recommending that dealer. I just placed an order with him!
I posted this on another thread about counterfeit stamps but it is probably more appropriate on this one. I purchased a sheet of Bugs Bunny US Forever stamps last week from an eBay seller with a 100 percent rating. I became suspicious when I noticed the word “Forever” missing on one of the stamps. I took it to the.Post Office to have the sheet verified and of course they are COUNTERFEIT. I thought the post office would take the stamps and turn them over to the postal inspector for infestigation. Nope, I would have to take my complaint to eBay since that’s where I bought them. The post office personnel were not interested in doing anything. That really surprises me. I already have my money back, but the seller no longer has a 100 percent rating, yet he is continuing to sell stamps.
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One of our local stores sometimes does a promotion around certain “card” holidays - especially Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, “Buy a Card for $X or more and get a free postage stamp” but other than that, I don’t see many discounts on postage, and the “free” stamp is offered when you buy a really expensive greeting card.
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Thank you for sharing that link! My post office can’t get enough $0.10 or $0.05 or $0.04 stamps to keep me happy, and I’m using lots of them in my current international mailing combinations -
First Class x 2 + $0.10 x 2 = $1.56
or
First Class x 2 + $0.10 + $0.05 + $0.04 = $1.55 (correct rate)
I’m just curious: are you purposely trying to use 5+ stamps for your international postage? My current preference is one of two options:
1 Forever + 1 two-additional ounces = total 2 stamps
-or-
1 Forever + 1 Forever + 1 additional ounce = total 3 stamps
I am hopeful that a new/different 1 additional ounce stamp is coming this year; the current school bus design is too large and doesn’t match anything else (I think the rabbit was discontinued way too early!).
Also, I just usually order stamps online (thru the USPS website).
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Wow, if the postal clerk had looked at the stamps in her/his drawer to be sold, they obviously do not have the “forever” crossed out. Sad, really., how untrained so many postal workers are.
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No, trying to use stamps the international Postcrossers don’t see that often. I just found a stamp dealer on eBay with lots of older $0.20 stamps, so once those come, I’ll be able to use 3 stamps instead - 2 x $0.68 + $0.20 - and that will be nice for the international Postcrossers.
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Gotcha! And I agree! It’s also why I usually buy at least one sheet of the forevers that I like and I probably get about 80% of registrations commenting on the stamps.
2oz (0.92) plus postcard rate (0.53) plus a pear (0.10) also equals the international rate in three stamps without overpaying.
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I’ve been doing that lately, but then I found this thread and saw a lot of other people had the same idea. 
First of all, +1 to ordering stamps from USPS’s online store—the best part is that they’re rarely out of stock of anything you could acquire locally!
That said, my usual spread for international postcards at the moment is:
- 1× Forever (68¢) + 2× Red Fox (80¢ total) + 1× Grapes (5¢) + 1× Navajo Jewelry (2¢) = $1.55 exact!
But that’s mostly so I can (1) send folks a variety of stamps, (2) rotate through all of the Forevers that I find interesting & (3) get through a stock of 2¢ Navajo Jewelry stamps, since I don’t find that series the most attractive.
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The eBay sellers that sells fake even if they have a 100 percent rating usually only have a few hundred sales or less and they usually don’t have a profile pic. Or they have a random name with numbers and symbols. Also legitimate stamp dealers will usually put the Scott number in the listing. And they will mention that they are a member of the APS American Philatelist Association. The large majority of fake stamps are forever stamps. Older stamps that have am assigned value to them are usually ok.
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There was a Scott number on this particular listing.
A scott number is just an identifying number, it’s a way to denote which stamp is which, it doesn’t mean a stamp is legitimate.
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I try to use as many stamps as possible for all my cards, especially international. I figure international recipients tire of seeing the same forever flower stamps. These are my current combos.
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