Using up older mint stamp for the general public just got tougher.

Sometimes I’m offered a collection that has tens of dollars in mint stamps. Perhaps $100 of mint stamps at most. In these cases, I tell the seller to take the stamps home and use them up for postage. At least they’ll get face value out of it. Since the quantity isn’t huge, they’ll be able to use it up in a few years.

However, that has become more difficult now. Walk into any post office and ask for some 1¢, 2¢, or 3¢ stamps. Many post offices don’t have any low denomination stamps. If a post office does have any, it will be a few sheets at most to be used for odd purposes. You’re not going to be able to walk into a post office and ask for 500 1¢ stamps to help use up your 42¢ stamps from a few years ago. Customers who need a large quantity of low denomination stamps will have to hope that their postmaster will order the stamps for them. Otherwise, the customer is going to have to place a special order with Stamp Fulfillment Services in Kansas City.

This may be an opportunity for dealers to unload some low denomination stamps to sellers who only need a few hundred stamps at most to use up their other stamps. Or sellers are going to have to resign themselves to selling the stamps for below face value because there isn’t going to be an easy way for them to use up older stamps.