Penny power hits post offices as H stamp becomes a hot item

Thursday, Jan. 14, 1999 | 10:24 a.m.

There is no shortage of the so-called "makeup" stamps at Southern Nevada post offices, but supplies are going fast, Postal Service officials said.

The stamp, which features a rooster and no price value, has a designated worth of one cent to make up the difference between the old rate of 32 cents and the 33-cent rate that went into effect Sunday.

The more than 8 million makeup stamps that were available in Nevada early this week had by midday Wednesday dwindled to 6.2 million at 204 post offices and Post Office Express locations statewide, postal officials said. Nevada's initial supply of 17 million has been available for sale since November.

"It was like Christmas in January -- it was that busy at the main post office," local Postal Service spokesman Tim Purcell said Wednesday. The traffic, he said, "was pretty bad in the parking lot."

Nationwide, some communities have reported shortages.

According to USA Today, spot shortages of the "H" series makeup stamps were reported in Baltimore and Columbia, S.C., earlier this week.

At a small station in California's Pacific Palisades, four clerks went through 150,000 one-cent stamps by Monday afternoon, and 80,000 were sold during that period in Dallas, USA Today said.

The last postal rate hike was in January 1995, when the cost of sending a first-class letter went from 29 cents to 32 cents.

Within the first three days that time, Las Vegas post offices ran out of the three-cent "G" series blue dove makeup stamps, which local postal officials said took them by surprise.

"We felt it was better that we overstock than understock," Purcell said Wednesday.

Another problem that inevitably happens when postal rates change is that letters with insufficient postage slip through.

A random check of 50 letters that arrived at the Sun office on Wednesday revealed that two of them with cancellation dates after Jan. 10 had gone through the system with a single 32-cent stamp.

"If we catch it, it will be returned for postage due one cent," Purcell said.

He said many Las Vegans simply were not aware Sunday that the rate hike had gone into effect.

That, Purcell said, definitely was a factor in the nationwide run on post offices by people seeking the makeup postage that will allow them to use up their supply of 32-cent stamps.

The USPS printed 2.5 billion makeup H stamps.

They also can be purchased by mail, by telephone (1-800-STAMP24) or via the Internet (www.usps.gov).