When You Don't Need 10,000 10¢ Stamps…

The USPS released a 10¢ Pears stamp in rolls of 10,000:





If you like the stamps but don't want to pay $1,000, there's another option. The USPS "caves" in Kansas City offer unfolded strips of 500 at face ($50) plus $1.30 shipping for philatelic purposes. I just ordered a strip, but the steps to do so are not obvious, so I thought I'd share them.

1. They are only available by phone. In the U.S., call the USPS at 1-800-STAMPS24 (which is 800-782-6724) to order. I don't know if shipping is available outside the U.S. — if you know, please post in the comments.

2. You will need the SKU for the strip of 500. It is 799315.

3. You will need your account number. You may not know your account number, but if you've ever ordered from the usps.com website, they have assigned you one, and they can look it up for you by a previous order number, which you can find in your "Order History" on the site. Ask them to look it up for you.

4. You will need to confirm your billing and shipping addresses and your credit card info by phone.

5. Your "strip" (which they will presumably coil for you) will arrive in about a week, they said. Out of an abundance of caution, I didn't purchase any other stamps in that order. I wanted to minimize chances of damage in the mailstream.


"But I don't need even 500 10¢ stamps! I just need a few!"

Are you sure? First Class postage is $0.49. Use five stamps and you lose a penny. Use all the stamps to mail one hundred letters (five stamps at a time) and you've lost a dollar.

On the other hand, dealers are charging double face for singles, with a greater premium for PNC5s and PNC9s. Eliminating shipping costs from the calculations (because dealers may charge it too), you break even if you plan to order ten singles from a dealer. If you plan to order more singles than that, or order a couple PNCs, this is a better ROI, if you have a way to use up the extra stamps.


"But I don't have a way to use up the extra stamps!"

Are you sure? 500 stamps is 100 letters, and you'd be using fewer than that, because you'd be keeping some.


"I'm still not going to mail that many letters!"

So, cut up your strip and set aside PNC5s or PNC9s, and sell those or trade them. Let you be the one making the profit instead of the dealer.


"I still don't...!"

OK, sorry to waste your time. But I bet this will be useful to someone else.


I'm going to be ordering some first day covers (instructions here); setting aside some PNCs to trade; and using the rest for postage. Let's hope they do a better job with the FDCs than they did with the Quilled Paper Heart stamps! Here's my cachet:






Hope this helps!

Very nice appreciate these time saving tips. Thank you

If one is not a magician I cannot understand how anyone can understand the USPS!

Doug

noone understands usps including usps

what was the release date on the stamp?

sdtom, release date was 2016-01-17, without a first-day ceremony.

(Yes, that was a Sunday.)

Thank you very much for a great write-up, and, especially, for sharing this information!

Very helpful!

Great information and very interesting! Things have really changed over the years.

Well it's been probably over 15 years since I ordered anything from the Cave/PFSC. In the 1990s could call in and ask for a custom cut -- you weren't required to buy the entire roll or even the standard 100/500/1000... part roll. You only had to buy the full interval from plate number to plate number plus 1 stamp. Didn't matter if it lacked a special number in the catalog. They would use the base catalog number and append a code to it. It was considered a custom order (like asking for a block of 8 instead of a block of 4 from the pane), and technically you were supposed to be charged a $1 custom order per item fee. But the reality was, they never charged me the fee -- only the normal order processing charge. If I wanted to collect PNC7s, I would simply increase the strip by 2.

Guess those days are long gone.

I guess I'll bite the bullet and get one on ebay for $.99

You just need one, non-plate-number single, sdtom? It seems such a waste to spend 99¢ on it. Email me your address and I'll mail you one when I get my strip.

will do and thanks for the offer

My pleasure.

Am I to understand that a single roll is going to have 10,000 stamps in it? I wonder how big around that roll would be. If stretched out in a straight line my estimate would be that it would extend almost 730 feet.
That's a length of about 2-1/2 football fields.


-IBFS

it must just be for mailing purposes only. My local PO has zero but one of our members will send me one.

The 10 cent is what is called a changemaker. There is no postal rate of that denomination.
At the APS winter show in Atlanta our club ( PNC3 ) was fortunate enough to have a roll of 500. The Post Office was situated right across from us and they did not have it. We sold quite a bit of strips of 27; the PO people sent everyone asking for the stamp our way.
By the way, the platenumber on the 10 cent pears starts with an S even though the printer has been taken over by another printer. The next issues in the series ( a 1 cent and a 5 cent ) will have a B prefix!

Peter

I got my strip of 500, and I've started dividing it up.



The printing really is quite lovely. I like that the USPS is taking this much care even with a changemaker. SFS also shipped it very carefully. I'm impressed.

sdtom, please be sure to send me your mailing address through the email function so I can send you yours.

If anyone else is interested in some, I'll set up a trade topic in the appropriate forum.