Thank you for the tip. It will be fun to see what kind of stamps I can get.
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Wait until tomorrow (January 24). A postcard stamp will be worth 36 cents then. 
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On a related note, the additional ounce stamp which was 15¢ will go up to 20¢. So theoretically, you could also do a $1.00 stamp + and additional ounce stamp to get $1.20. Or just 6 additional ounce stamps if that’s all you have.
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I love it! I think I’ve unknowingly sent quite a bit of mail with inadequate postage in the past that somehow got graced and sent along anyways.
There’s nothing wrong with using the $1.20 global stamp but it is fun to mix and match stamps that add up to a total of $1.20.
Oh! I just learned that there will be new postcard stamps (they’re really cute, with a barn on them) that are 36 cents. So for domestic postcard mail we’ll get to use a penny stamp with our old 35 cent fish stamps.
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The fish stamp doesn’t have a value on it, it just says postcard. I think that means they will always be worth whatever a postcard requires in the US.
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So I imagine Italy has no agreements at all outside EU, and put every country on the same level… our tariffs make a big step, more than doubling the cost if sending outside EU (from 1,15€ to 2,4€ for 20g), and almost three times if to Oceania (3,1€).
It wasn’t so until few years ago 
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I understand nothing about Latvia’s prices! Most of Europe countries are 1.35 and even China and Saudi Arabia are 1.35, but Finland is 1.42 (like America and Russia). There are no stamps for price 1.35, at least, in my town, so I must buy 1.39, where 1.35 is needed.
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Terminal dues are one component of the costs of sending mail abroad. Transport costs (air freight) are another. It could also that the demand for sending mail outside Europe is pretty low, which means that the costs have to be paid by the few people who are sending mail outside the Europe, further decreasing demand. There is another consideration: if you make one tariff for a large group of countries (in this case: all the countries outside Europe) you can set the tariff so that you don’t lose money for the most expensive country or you can set the tariff a bit lower, so that you might lose some money for the most expensive country, but you make more money for the cheaper countries, because demand doesn’t drop as much.
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Inside the EU terminal dues are 80% of the domestic tariff. As Finland has a high domestic tariff (€1.75), you have to pay more for a letter to Finland. Saudi Arabia and China are on low UPU terminal dues, so sending letters to those countries is not as expensive.
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I had the same question and came across this youtube video. Perhaps you’ll find it as interesting as I did!
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Thanks for sharing the video
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Hi @KathrynNash 
The fish stamps are forever postcard stamps, so they’re worth whatever the current postcard rate is. Meaning the fish stamp are also worth $0.36 now. So no need to add 1 cent to it, unless you want to.
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Oh, really? I’m glad you told me that. (Not that I’m gonna cry over a penny stamp). I just didn’t realize they were forever stamps. I knew that the old shell stamps are.
I don’t know where my mind has been–and clearly the US post office doesn’t know where theirs is, either! I just realized I have been postcrossing for two years, sent over 150 postcards–all international–with insufficient postage. I’ve been slapping two forever stamps on all my cards. These cost .55, so that’s only $1.10. The cost to send an international postcard is $1.20. I have had no contact with anyone who received a card saying there was postage due or anything like that. In the time it took me to send 155 cards, I have what appears to be 7 cards that were never registered. With the problems the USPS has had over the last 6 months, that’s not too bad.
I feel guilty!
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Well, it sounds like you mostly got lucky! So carry on, now that you know what the right postage is - occasionally the postage universe throws us some silver linings eh?
Great video - thanks for sharing. Hard to fathom having to get stamps for 4 countries( the example in the video) to send a letter. Don’t even know how they’d do that pre-1874 or even easily today - it would take a long time.
Michiel, thanks for explaining that to us.
Do you know anywhere that lays out international postal routing? I’ve been super curious about this since I joined Postcrossing & I’ve yet to come across anything online that lays it out & I’ve done some searching for sure.
I’m also fascinated at what postal workers know & don’t know or get told or don’t get told about this routing. I’ve even had some workers express frustration at not being able to find out more themselves. Some postal services seem more willing to share info than some.
I’d love to hear more if you have any other info to share please.
I think it is that spreadsheet in that video posted by pmunz. Postal routes are offered based on the timetables of the airlines companies. From what I understand (I was head of large mailroom in the late 1990s that sent out lots of international mail) the sending postal authority picks a particular postal route depending on speed requirement and price. I’m guessing that the larger postal authorities have or had special contracts on the busier routes. Sometimes there is a quality requirement (within Europe 85% needs to be delivered within 3 days and 95% in 5 days), so you cannot always pick the cheapest and slower route. Basically you have a varying amount of mail to all over the world, with different speed requirements and the postal authority has to find the best and cheapest postal route.
From what I understand routing is decided quite late in the process. Picking the best route lowers costs, it is a procurement activity, so not all postal authorities are willing to share all the details. For the customer side it is important that the client (us) gets the service that is to be expected. From day to day you cannot always say which route the mail will take.
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Thanks so very much for this info Michiel. I wouldn’t have thought it would be that variable, but that would explain some inconsistent things.
I have been told several times from a variety of Canada Post sources that mail from Canada to Europe gets sorted in the UK first and yet mail to & from Germany is always the fastest, faster than Canada to the UK often, lol - so that made me think it was going via direct flights rather than through the UK.
I would so love to be a fly on the wall in the routing centres for a week to see how it actually does work. I’ve learned a lot of patience on Postcrossing, but I’m also just super curious to go deeper into how our postal systems work - it’s also helpful I find to think of your postcard travelling along & where it goes specifically. Like this:
Day 1 - picked up & enroute by truck to sorting plant
Day 2 - at sorting plant
Day 3 - on plane
Day 4 - at receiving sorting plant in country X
Day 5 - moves out to carriers for delivery
Day 6 - arrives at receiver’s mailbox
One day, I’d love to have affordable tech to be able to track a letter as it travels, but from what research I’ve done, I think it would only work for packages given the size of these devices right now. I know some postal services now use their own tracking systems for regular mail to give customers updates, so we’re close.
I am somewhat concerned about the “cheapest route/cost” possible as it sounds like there is a fair bit of contracting out/privatization going on and that always is bad news for essential public postal systems.
Thanks again!
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One weird thing I have “generally” noticed is that if I send postcards from post offices that are sorted at Gateway Centre in Toronto, they seem to take longer over Montréal sort centre (I live in Ottawa - so both mine and your mail go through Montréal). I am not sure if it is just me, or if maybe the volume of mail is much higher in Toronto, so it is slower (this was pre-covid).
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