[Nodxa] IRC's and Global Forever Stamps

[John Papay]

As AF8C posted, IRC's will no longer be sold by
the USPS after today.  I just ordered a few of them
on the USPS.com website as did K8BL.  Now you'll have
to get them from another country.  It would not have cost
them anything to have them on the usps.com web store but
they didn't see the wisdom of that.  According to the website
when I ordered, they had 330,900 of them in stock.  If they
didn't want to sell them any more, why didn't they just have
them on their website until 12/31/2013 when the current issue
irc's expire.  Now they'll have to shred them. You have to wonder
what they are thinking.  The post office here must still redeem
irc's since that is a requirement of the International Postal Union.
Member countries are not required to sell them, however.  Good
luck with trying to redeem them in your local post office.

On another matter, the new air mail forever stamp will be issued
on 1/28/2013.  It is a round stamp, quite different from anything
seen before.  Canada and Mexico are no longer less expensive to
send a letter to compared to other countries.  Every country is
$1.10.  One hidden qualification to that is that $1.10 gets you
up to 2 ounces to Canada compared to 1 ounce to all other countries.

Our other option to sending money for postage is William Plum foreign
postage stamp service.  But IRC's are less expensive than stamps for
some countries like Italy an Columbia.  I've had fairly good luck with
sending SASE's with foreign stamps except for a few countries like
Venezuela and Columbia. Then there are those hams that won't qsl no
matter what you try.  Plum has airmail envelopes, European style, that
come in two sizes, one slightly smaller than the other so they fit
together without folding.  Highly recommended.

73,
John K8YSE