By Dennis D. McDonald

I often write letters to friends and family. Recently I was pleased to discover you can buy postage stamps online from the US Postal Service.

"Ha Ha," you may say, "Isn't it 'ironic' that you don't just buy them by mail?"

I suppose. Or, I could certainly use one of the services for buying and printing my stamps on my own office printer. 

But that just would not be that much fun. And, Amazon might be surprised to discover, I don't really have to have everything delivered within two days.

Using real stamps becomes a part of the whole ritual of letter writing. If you're not a serious philatelist (like my brother) you won't know what new stamps will be coming out so there is the element of surprise every month or so. Plus, you get to slap a different stamp on every hand addressed envelope you mail. This is another form of personalization for the hand-generated letter inside the envelope.

Click the images below to see some of the stamps I have used.

Text copyright (c) 2018 by Dennis D. McDonald