D'oh! U.S. Postal Service stuck with 682 million Simpsons stamps

By Bloomberg News ^ | August 21, 2012

[SMGFan]

The money-losing U.S. Postal Service guessed that TV cartoon character Homer Simpson and his family were twice as popular as Elvis Presley when it came to sales of commemorative stamps.

As Homer would say, “D’oh!” In a move that wasted $1.2 million in printing costs, the service produced 1 billion of “The Simpsons” stamps and sold 318 million.

[mvpel]

It’s not like they go bad.

[nickcarraway]

Underachievers and proud of it?

[Spktyr]

So, use them as regular stamps and not ‘speh-shul’ commemorative stamps.

Who collects stamps any more, anyway?

[dfwgator]

[crosshairs]

[nascarnation]

When are the Baraq & MooseChelle series stamps released?

[ozzymandus]

How could they lose money on stamps? Are they so stupid they threw them away? Sell them to people who buy stamps. If they’re really that worried about it, sell them a penny cheaper.

[xp38]

Those that keep the stamps and never use them allow the USPS to turn a nice profit. They love philatelists but the hobby has suffered because of national post offices churning out tons of issues over the years simply to milk the stamp collecting market. I stopped buying new issues years ago because of this. Is is similar with many other collectibles. There was a thread some time ago listing collectibles that will never gain in value because of overproduction.

[KarlInOhio]

[upchuck]

The USPS could declare these Simpsons stamps to be “Forever” stamps and sell them till the cows come home.

[jimmango]

Who collects stamps any more, anyway?
I still do, but I mainly try to go back and fill in the gaps I have. The USPS kind of killed it for me when they went with the self adhesive stamps. It makes it hard to go by a single stamp for the collection.

[dfwgator]

I still have my collection that went from the 1900s to 1970s, there was always be a market for those stamps.

[ozzymandus]

I was in a shop that sold guns, coins, jewlery, stamps, etc. A lady came in with a big box of “collectible issue” stamps and wanted them appraised. The owner said he would pay face value for sheets of stamps and didn’t want smaller lots or individual stamps. He said nobody collected most of the ordinary collector issues and only wanted rare, old stamps. He used the sheets of stamps he bought for ordinary postage and showed me some of his outgoing mail. The packages were covered with stamps.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

"The USPS could declare these Simpsons stamps to be “Forever” stamps and sell them till the cows come home."

But they probably paid some exorbitant royalty fee to be allowed to use the Simpson character or artwork. They expected to be able to recoup and even make a profit because "collected" stamps are not used to actually post mail, they just sit in a book or box.

[dfwgator]

My favorite thing was to get the big bags of foreign stamps. I learned a lot about history as a kid because of stamp collecting.

[Red Badger]

Sell them for HALF PRICE! That way you can get some value for them......................

[xp38]

In the old days post offices released a conservative number of issues each year. Another rule was no living person on a stamp except the monarch in the case of the old British empire. That has changed due to marketing. Australia has been issuing stamps of their gold medalists in the olympics and many other living persons. All sorts of third world countries issue stamps of celebs and sports stars that have zero connection to the issuing country purely to cash in on collectors. Pretty sure there are some stamps out there for 0. Kenya could at least be a plausible issuer though.

[KarlInOhio]

The cost ($1.2 million for 700 million surplus stamps) is 0.17¢ per stamp. Selling at a penny discount would a $7 million loss on top of the $1.2 million already lost.

One over issue of stamps would be a mistake, but it looks like most of the special issue stamps are over produced. I buy so few stamps anymore that I don't even bother to see what they are producing anymore. I'm still working on my 2011 Christmas stamps. Those few people (mostly tax collectors) who I mail to generally get those. I'll save my Liberty Bell stamps for relatives who would give me crap about a Christmas card in August.

[KarlInOhio]

Sell them for HALF PRICE! That way you can get some value for them......................

Now we're up to spending (or actually losing from displaced sales of full price stamps) $154 million to make up for a $1.2 million mistake. Are you trying to steal the Postmaster General's job?