When I go to my neighborhood post office to buy international rate stamps, the postal workers there often ask me if I want some airmail stickers. They’re free, but I think I read somewhere that they’re “new old stock” that USPS isn’t printing anymore, so they may not be available at all post offices.
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First of all, those are stunning. 
Second, you should start a topic about stamps that we miss dearly and may never be able to use again. It would be a tragic topic, yes, but I bet a lot of us have a stamp-shaped hole in our hearts for our discontinued favorites. 
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Since I mention an interest in stamps in my profile, I possibly get fewer cards with Global Forever stamps on - but there’s still a lot of them. I’m not complaining, I understand how convenient they are and it is cool that they’re round, but obviously I prefer combinations of different stamps. 
Although there have been eight different Global Forever stamps, the succulent and the poinsettia are by far the most common.
I do love the balls Forever stamps and I did actually receive every one of them over time. But I only have three of the Oscar de la Renta ones. You Americans are very lucky that you can still use old stamps - here in Germany you can only use those from after the introduction of the Euro, so not even going back 20 years, which limits your choices a bit. Also our sheets of stamps are usually ten of one kind, whereas the USPS often issues sheets with different stamps on one topic. They’re fun to “collect”. (I have a virtual stamp collection, so I can look at them all together - over time this has become almost equally as much fun to me as the postcards themselves.)
I hardly ever see Air Mail stickers on postcards from the US - I wouldn’t even have remembered what they look like if someone hadn’t posted a picture here in the thread. But with two Forever stamps + 10 c or some other combination, there usually isn’t a lot of space left for an Air Mail sticker and I don’t think it’s really necessary anyway.
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‘Global Forever’ get used on 50% of my cards from US. And I haven’t received any with green succulent yet 
I like small 10 or 5 cent US stamps. Also I like Global Forever stamps with Moon and Earth issued earlier.
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…I’m in anguish here reading that you all are bored of our Global Forever stamps. 
THEY’RE SO CUTE. Having a sheet of the little green succulents is like having a little tray of real succulents that I don’t have to take care of! And I’m dying to get my hands on those pink chrysanthemums! @ana_karp, I don’t remember the moon, but now I need the moon. 
And @Kompis-Ninna, the changing of the seasons from Succulent to Poinsettia is like the transition from iced tea to hot chocolate with marshmallows! It’s like when they put up strings of white lights on street trees downtown! It’s like a warm hug from Santa Claus himself!
Can I…can I just send someone my Global Forever stamps so you can send them all back to me? 
I know they’re invalid as postage for you, but just stick 'em on anyway!
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Oh, the Energy Awareness postmark is the worst!!! It completely obliterates the stamp design. I hope they never make such a postmark again.
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I like it when they use 2 forever and a smaller value stamp. The more stamps the better.
1 stamp is mostly boring.
Fortunately October is over 
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Hey, not all of us are bored of these lovely Global Forever stamps! (even more often I read how people are tired of our “castles” 
)
Now I have 6 postcards from the USA: 2 green succelents (my fave), 1 Christmas circlet (spruce branches with cones and red ribbon, issued in 2013 as I understand it), 1 postage with QR-code (I like it no less because of really nice message on the card), and 2 chrysanthemums (just got the second one).
I treasure every one of them 
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well all those common stamp designs (no matter from which country… but more likely from the ones with lots of postcrossers of course) are getting quite boring after a while 
When I receive a card from Germany with the definitive flower stamp I’m always like… oh, just another flower… have seen it soooo many times. Of course Postcrossing is not about stamps. So I would never complain about it. But some nice stamps might be the topping of a card! Just a nice little extra. And the US has such wonderful stamps available, expecially as they still may use the really old ones!
I don’t have many stamps scanned at the moment, as I only scan my most favourite (Mickey Mouse and Grand Canyon in these examples). I think the 2nd card is quite overpaid?
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I love the castles! I want to collect the whole Kreml series. But now, the stamps coming from Russia are the old-style patriotic and I find them a bit … well, boring. 
But I love receiving Russian postcards anyway!
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I don’t get these stamps too often and I’m the opposite - I love them! One of the postcards lately came with I think six of these in stuck together in a row and I was like:
They just look neat in my opinion
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Since I asked for astro themed stamps in my profile, I often get the forever stamps about the first moon landing, but also the black moon that turns light when you put your thumb on it, a few global forever stamps with the moon on it and one with Sally Ride - which made me at once listening to Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the Fire” where she’s named at 3:11.
But of course I also got many of the other global forever stamps, now mainly with the succulent.
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I love stamps, seeing the variety and growing my collection.
Last month I got several spooky themed stamps from America. A spider which was great. I love seeing stamps which I have never seen before and having a couple of different ones to look at. But I’ll still be happy with one stamp as more often than not you’ve taken the time to pick out a postcard and written a great message on it.
I have never seen those sports ball themed ones on any cards sent to me. They are really cool. Especially the basketball one.
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At least you are aware of energy now
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Thursday, November 12, 2020 - 19:57 (UTC -5)
Hi, All:
A number of people have mentioned the Air Mail/ Par Avion stickers earlier in this Topic. I had a chat with my local Postmaster this afternoon and here’s what she said…
(1) All mail originating in the USA addressed to non-USA/international destinations goes by air by default. There is no surface (non-air mail) option (which we could have hoped would be cheaper, but no such luck).
Only very rarely does outbound mail from the USA go by other than air. This happened earlier this year during the start of the Covid crisis in the USA . See here => https://esellercafe.com/us-postal-service-shifting-international-air-mail-sea-transport-during-covid-19-update-6-5-2020/
(2) The blue Air Mail stickers (that I showed in an earlier post in this thread) are not required but are recommended. They are free for the asking and serve as an “eye-catcher”, to “jolt” (her word) the USA Letter Carriers and Sorting Personnel into noticing that a piece of mail is international. Anything that can help the humans route things correctly before the hand-off to the machines in the postal processing plants is a good thing. These USA stickers have no meaning for other countries’ postal services (just as other countries’ air mail stickers have no meaning to other destination countries, including the USA).
Speaking of air mail, does anyone know if any countries now have “surface” rates in addition to air mail? I ask because aerobear’s photo of two Russian stamps reminds me that many of the Russian cards I’ve received recently don’t always have 55 kopeks worth of postage on them (a kopek is 1/100 of a ruble). Some have a little less. Maybe there was a postal rate increase? Transit times from Russia are often really long. But I can’t imagine it’s because it’s surface FROM Russia (St. Petersburg is not Rotterdam as far as shipping volumes are concerned). Maybe it’s surface WITHIN Russia. In any event, they do have great stamps.
M
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Heh. I’m not really a stamp collector, so perhaps someone who is more an enthusiast than I am can start that thread. Even though I do like some of the older stamps, I tend to buy the newest stamps available. Maybe subconsciously, I like matching current stamps with when the postcard is sent.
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I think I’ve used the spooky stamps all through October. Lately I’ve been accumulating Christmas/holiday/winter stamps so I can use them all through December.
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They are beautiful no doubt but I see them used too often 
The Global Moon stamp was stunning the first time I saw it and I had never seen circular stamps before. Earlier this year, I made a bookmark of the Global Moon stamps.
I’ve also received this Sea Surface Temperatures Global Forever stamp, it was beautiful but I’ve only received it once.
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WOW! Apparently, I missed out on a lot of cool stamps before I started Postcrossing! 
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