Stamp would be usable forever

WASHINGTON — Not just diamonds are forever. Add stamps to the list. The post office is planning a "forever" stamp for letters, good no matter how many times postal rates increase.

That means folks could say goodbye to those annoying 2-cent or 3-cent stamps that have to be added to letters every time rates go up. Sheets, rolls, books or loose stamps in the drawer would still be good.

Forever.

The idea for the special stamps, which would be sold at the same price as other first-class stamps, was included in proposals announced Wednesday that would also raise stamp prices 3 cents — to 42 cents — next year.

"A forever stamp would help ease the transition to any future price adjustments," board chairman James C. Miller III said.

So, would people stock up on them?

"No, because I'd probably lose them," said Timothy Cummings, 31, of Lakeland, Fla.

But Layne Rico, a corporate pilot from Valencia, Calif., was more enthusiastic. While he mainly uses stamps for greeting cards, he thinks the forever stamp is a good idea. "Five hundred or 1,000 would cover me in my lifetime."

Adela Checino of Orange County, Calif., said she would stock up on the stamps because she uses lots of them to pay bills.

And Inez Miller of The Villages, Fla., agreed she too would stock up, though she expressed a bit of skepticism that they would really be good forever.

The idea must still pass muster with the independent Postal Rate Commission, but that shouldn't be a major problem since commission member Ruth Goldway urged the post office to consider such a stamp a year ago.

"All of us at the commission who have followed the issue are delighted that this is something we will be able to consider," Goldway said Wednesday.

Letters, cards, bill payments and other first-class mail items have been declining in recent years as people turn to the Internet. At the same time, there has been an increase in advertising mail.

Raising postal rates is a complex process that takes nearly a year, meaning consumers would have plenty of time to get the special stamps when they knew an increase was coming.

Hoarding isn't expected to be a problem.