BOISE, Idaho — In case anyone needed a reason to cut loose, October is National Stamp Collecting Month. Whether you've used stamps with the Pony Express or sealed an envelope with your student loan payment with your tears, stamps can bring people together.
Or make someone teeter on the existential edge, like John Miller.
In 2000, the Idaho Life reporter lamented another penny increase for postage.
At the turn of the new millennium, the US Postal Service decided it would be a good time for a new price. At 34 cents, an increase of one cent, it would be the second such change in as many years.
Editor's Note: The following story originally aired in 2000.
You know, every time they jack up the price of stamps, they come out with those temporary stamps, with letters on 'em.
In '95, it was 'G' for ‘G whiz, it' going up again. In '98 it was 'H' for ‘Holy cow, it's going up again,’ and this year what do you have? What would the 'I' have been? ‘I can't believe it! It's going up one more time.’
They must have gotten sick of me, because this year, it's just a plain old stamp, that costs a penny more.
That's no fun? That's no fun at all! At 34 cents, just a little bit of a postal pain in the neck? Yeah!
Waiting to buy little teeny stamps to stick next to our suddenly insufficient first-class jobs, standing in line, the same as we did six years ago. How scary is that?
They're trying to get us one penny at a time? I think so!
Postal guy Jim Adams says don't blame the post office, blame the gas pump that’s driving up postage costs.
Dave Cole is feeling the pinch, he's sending off his 100 wedding thank you notes. He said he figures we’ll survive like last time, and the time before that.
There have been a dozen price increase for postage stamps since then. It now costs 55 cents to mail a letter first-class.
Since it is National Stamp Collecting Month, there are several stamp collecting clubs in southern Idaho, including one in Eagle. Their 25 members usually get together once a month in the basement of the Eagle Methodist Church.
But because of COVID, KTVB was told that they haven't collected since February. COVID - even crashing our stamp collecting.
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