Post Office Drops Popular Santa Program

The Associated Press reports, "The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks."

According to the report by AP reporter Rachel D'Oro, "Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the individual could answer a child's letter, but the Postal Service viewed the episode as a big enough scare to tighten rules in such programs nationwide."

USPS spokeswoman Sue Brennan is quoted in the piece as saying the agency now prohibits volunteers from having access to children's family names and addresses.

According to Brennan, "The Postal Service instead redacts the last name and addresses on each letter and replaces the addresses with codes that match computerized addresses known only to the post office — and leaves it up to individual post offices if they want to go through the time-consuming effort to shield the information."

Apparently dealing with the tighter restrictions is not feasible in Alaska.

However, the good news is kids around the world can still send letters to Santa Claus. The Postal Service still runs the giant Operation Santa Program in which children around the world can have their letters to Santa answered, and the restrictions do not affect private organizations running their own letter efforts.

To read the entire article, click here.

Remembering the Mail Carrier

Associated Press personal finance writer Candice Choi writes, "This holiday season, a leaner budget might clarify which people truly make a difference in your life. The challenge will be figuring out how much to tip them."

She reports," Mail carriers... can only take non-cash gifts valued at $20 or less. That could include a gift card, but not personal checks in any amount. Alcohol isn't allowed either, even if it's worth less than $20."

Candice goes on to say, "If cash tips aren't in the budgetary stars, you can still give small gifts that don't cost a lot. Baked goods, jams and candles are the perennial crowd pleasers. But use your knowledge about the person to be creative."

She recommends, "If you feel you can't afford a tip or gift, thank you notes can still make a difference."

Shown above, Letter carrier Ron Henry delivers mail while wearing a Santa hat in Bowling Green, Ky in a 2007 AP file photo,

To read the entire article, click here.

Click here to see a Consumer Reports study on what holiday tips people gave to whom last year.

Unusual Pet Mail

Larry T. Nix, publisher of the Library History Buff Blog, sends along a list of the Top 10 Unusual Mail Deliveries and Events.

Among them are Pony Express, Missile Mail, Child Post, Rural Free Delivery and other well-known types of mail deliveries.

However, there is one I had not heard of before.

It concerns the postmaster in Orlando, Florida who in December, 1954, received a pet chameleon and the following letter:

Dear Sir:

I am sending my chameleon because I live in Fostoria, Ohio and it is too cold for him here. Will you please let him loose?

Sincerely yours,

David __________

P.S. Could you let me know if he arrives there OK? Thank you very much. I am so worried about him.

On December 7, 1954, David received the following response:

Dear David,

I received your chameleon yesterday and he was immediately released on the post office grounds. Best wishes for a merry Christmas!

Sincerely,

L.A. Bryant, Jr.
Postmaster

To read the entire list, click here.

Printing Postage Stamps

Holiday Gift Idea

Now's a great time to pick up a copy of Janet Klug's Guide To Stamp Collecting. Amazon.com is selling the $19.95 book for as little as $1.49 in used (but like new) condition. There are several "new" copies selling for under $3.00.

Harper Collins writes on their website, "Whether you’ve always wanted to start a stamp collection or already have the beginnings of one, this is the definitive guide to becoming a smart and savvy stamp collector, with information on everything from the history of stamps to surprising celebrity philatelists to the best way to remove stamps from envelopes."

The book also has information on:

• Finding and identifying stamps


• Caring for and exhibiting your collection


• Understanding collecting terms


• Verifying authenticity


• Using internet resources

Janet is a past president of the American Philatelic Society, chairman of the Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum's Council of Philatelist's New Initiatives , and a fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society in London. She writes stamp collecting columns in various philatelic publications, including Linn's and Scott Stamp Monthly.

For more books about philately, click here.

Design Errors

According to the DansTopical.com website, "An 'error' in philately usually refers something that has gone wrong in the production of a stamp: the wrong or missing colors, misperforations, inversions, and things like that. Such errors are relatively rare and therefore stamps with such errors are expensive. However, there is another kind of error that is neither so rare nor so expensive. It is the design error. In the case of map stamps they include incorrect coordinates, mistakes in spelling, incorrect geography, political and historical errors, and other similar matters."

For example, shown above is a stamp was issued by Mexico in 1964 to commemorate the Chamizal Treaty negotiated in 1963, and to honor the U.S. President, John F. Kennedy, who had negotiated the treaty. The error is that President Lopez Mateos of Mexico, who was much shorter than President Kennedy, is pictured as being the same height.

To view an indexed listing of other design errors, click here.

Your Mailbox Could Turn You Into a Victim of Identity Theft

NBC4 Los Angeles reports, "The U.S. Postal Service says more than 2,000 people were arrested last year for stealing from mailboxes. But most crooks who do this are never caught and prosecuted."

In an article that appears on its website titled "Is Your Mail Actually Safe in Your Mailbox?," it suggests your mailbox could turn you into a victim of identity theft.

Reporter Joel Grover pens,"It happened to Paulette Light of Los Angeles, who always left her bills sticking out of her home mailbox, for her mailman to pickup and take to the post office. But she stopped doing that last month, when she was looking at her checking account online, and noticed two strange checks written on her account."

"Police believe someone stole her paid bills from her mailbox, then duplicated her checks on a computer, complete with her account number, and her signature, and then started writing checks from her account," according to Joel.

Click here to read the entire article.

To learn more about how your mailbox could turn you into a victim of identity theft, click here.

U.S. To Issue Boy Scout Stamp Next Summer

The U.S. Postal Service will be honoring 100 years of scouting with a stamp set for release next summer.

According to a USPS press release, "The new stamp design was unveiled Thursday during an event at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. The design, created by illustrator Craig Frazier of Mill Valley, CA, depicts the spirit and outdoor adventure of scouting through a backpacking scout and a large silhouette of a scout surveying the landscape."

It goes on to say, "In conjunction with the Celebrate Scouting announcement and Veteran’s Day observances, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced it will begin a nationwide effort to support U.S. Armed Forces personnel serving overseas and veterans by sending letters and care packages using the Priority Mail Flat Rate Box through the Postal Service. Local DC-area scouts mailed letters and shared news about the scouting stamp from the museum this morning. The letter writing campaign continues the BSA’s longstanding tradition of service and performing 'a good turn' daily."

The new Celebrate Scouting stamps will go on sale nationwide and will be dedicated in July 2010 at the Boy Scout Jamboree at Ft. A.P. Hill, VA.

To read the entire press release, click here.

Roundup Selected as Stamp Spotlight Blog on Trakkrz.com

The Stamp Collecting Roundup has been selected as the Stamp Spotlight Blog of the month by Trakkrz.com.

What is Trakkrz.com?

According to the site's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), "Trakkrz.com is the place to 'trakk' the best individual bloggers on the web by topic. We don’t follow news feeds, and generic search results for a topic like those other sites. Every one of our blogs has been reviewed and included individually to ensure they meet our quality standards. In addition, to add a bit of flavor to our topic pages we like to follow interesting related flickr groups and YouTube videos. All in all trakkrz topics are a wonderful place to get informed about the latest on a specific topic."

What inspired Trakkrz.com?

"We were tired of all the blog following sites that include any and every blogger out their regardless of quality. We wanted to build a community where visitors could come and see the latest from popular bloggers on a particular topic, get to know the bloggers themselves, and be able to comment on and highlight the best that these bloggers have to offer."

Click here to go to the Trakkrz.com homepage.

Holiday Mail for Heroes

While today is a Federal holiday, it is business as usual for our service personnel.

Frank McDade writes the Roundup to ask readers to send holiday cards with messages of thanks and cheer to service members, veterans and their families. Frank is part of the 2009 “Holiday Mail for Heroes” campaign with the Red Cross.

The campaign, which is sponsored in part by Pitney Bowes, runs through Monday, December 7.

Take time today to thank the troops, veterans of all wars and their families by sending a holiday card to

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

For information about what types of cards can be sent, how cards should be addressed, and further information regarding how you can get involved, click here.

World's First Multimedia Stamp

Crienglish.com reports, "A new series of stamps entitled 'The Tang Dynasty's Three Hundred Poems' is stirring up a wave of excitement in a market that has remained pretty quiet for almost two decades."

According to an article by report Chu Daye,"Some say that this new stamp collection is nothing short of a milestone in China's postal history, surpassing the importance of the famed Dragon Stamp of the Qing Dynasty or the Monkey Stamp of the 1980s, no less."

Daye writes, "The product behind all this frenzy is the world's first multimedia stamp, containing within it enough information to recite famous poems from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD)."

"Touching the stamps with a special pen-shaped device, called the aigo pen, allows a chip in the pen to recite some of the greatest poems from the Tang Dynasty, including work by Li Bai, Du Fu and Bai Juyi. Receiving a letter in the post will never be the same again," he says.

A product of Beijing Huaqi Information Digital Technology, China's leading producer of electronic consumer goods, the aigo storyteller pen is a unique gadget that combines an infrared recognition system, mass data storage and an MP3 player.

Shown above, Yao Wei, CEO of Beijing Huaqi Information Digital Technology, with aigo pens

To read the entire article, click here.

Book on Simon Taxis Receives Major Italian Philatelic Journalist Award

Italy's Philatelic Journalists Guild has awarded the book Simon Taxis and the Posts of the State of Milan During the Renaissance by Giorgio Migliavacca and Tarcisio Bottani the prestigious "Fulvio Apollonio Prize" for the best postal history book published in 2008 according to a report on the BVI News website.

Last August the book won a gold medal in Pittsburgh at the APS Stampshow.

According to the article, Dr. Migliavacca is quoted as saying, "Italy has her own Rowland Hill: he is Simon Taxis the creator of an unprecedented postal speed that remained unchallenged until the advent of the train over 300 hundred years later. Simon Taxis was instrumental in modernizing the European posts in the 1500s and making them accessible for the first time to the general public. In turn this led to the creation of a state monopoly of the postal service."

Dr. Migliavacca is the president of the British Virgin Islands Philatelic Society. His book was published last year by the by the Taxis Museum at Cornello, Bergamo, Italy.

Shown above, Professor Tarcisio Bottani (left) and Dr. Giorgio Migliavacca receiving the Apollonio Prize from the President of the Philatelic Journalists Guild, Mr. Danilo Bogoni (far right)

To read the entire article, click here.

Saddam Stamps Skyrocket in Iraq

Stamp prices showing Saddam Hussein are rising sharply in Iraq according to a report by Sammy Ketz of American Free Press (AFP).

Kamal Kamel, who runs a stall selling stamps in the Bab al-Muazzam district where the Iraqi Philatelic and Numismatic Society meets is quoted in the piece as saying, "Before 2003, the country was closed in on itself and we were cut off from the international market. But now business is going well. American and British collectors snap up stamps with Saddam on them."

He goes on to say, "Unlike us, they couldn't get enough of him -- they could not buy the stamps, because of the embargo," referring to UN sanctions on trade with Iraq introduced after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

"A series showing Saddam Hussein which was worth 200 dinars sells today for 5,000 dinars (4.3 dollars). My monthly revenues have passed from 200 to 1,500 dollars. Prices really have risen," according to Kamel.

Shown above, a 1986 Iraqi stamp showing Saddam Hussein in military uniform.

To read the entire article, click here.

Why Benny Hill Was Bumped from British Stamps

UK's Daily Mail reports documents reveal comic Benny Hill was dumped from a set of Royal Mail stamps because of concerns about his "saucy" style.

According to the paper, "Slapstick, burlesque and double entendre were always his hallmark. Some critics accused the show of sexism but Hill maintained that the female characters kept their dignity while the men chasing them were portrayed as buffoons."

The article went on to say, "Royal Mail deemed that his jokes were in direct opposition to the company's policies on harassment in the work place."

A set of six stamps were issued in September 2005 to commemorate 50 years of ITV. They honored six British television programs which were made famous on ITV. These included Emmerdale, Rising Damp, The Avengers, Morse, The South Bank Show and Who Wants to be A Millionaire?

The Benny Hill Show which ran from 1955 to 1989 and was aired on the BBC and Thames Television in the UK and broadcast in more than 140 countries was not selected to be featured on the set.

Hill died in 1992.

Shown above, Hill in a skit involving Royal Mail wearing a "postie's" uniform.

To read the entire article, click here.

Terre Haute "Postman" Wagon Model

The National Postal Museum's "Object of the Month" is the Terre Haute "Postman" Wagon Model.

According to a write-up that appeared in the museum's electronic newsletter, The Postmark,"The Postman" is one of five quarter-sized specimen rural delivery wagons built for the Post Office Department by the Terre Haute Carriage and Wagon Company in the late nineteenth century."

The Department used these wagons to help drum up Congressional support for a Rural Free Delivery (RFD) service.

This fully operational working model, "the Postman," has the sliding doors and windows of the finished product. The four-wheeled wagon was designed to be used with either one or two horses, was equipped with sliding doors and "storm proof" windows, built-in drawers for holding postal supplies and pigeonholes for mail. The wagons, made from hickory and ash with poplar panels, were hand painted.

To learn more, click here.