Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Sabes and a postage increase heads up


In my ever vigilant lookout for Topps Retired autos I need, I found this 2003 Bret Saberhagen for a good deal the other day and snatched it up. Don't see this one pop up very often.


Cy Young winner in '85 and '89. World Series MVP in '85. Nagging injuries hampered the second half of his career, but still pretty good lifetime numbers.

So yeah, happy to add a Bret Saberhagen autograph to my collection.


Speaking of BS, the US Postal Service is jacking up their rates again. In case you haven't heard, effective this Sunday, January 27, 2019, cards (and everything else) will become a bit more expensive to ship. And First-Class packages will move to zone-based pricing, meaning it'll cost (even) more to send a bubble mailer across the country or to out in the boonies than it would to send to somebody in a city closer to you. And Forever stamps are going up from 50¢ to 55¢.

So now is a good time to stock up on Forever stamps if you can. And if you have any stacks of cards you've been building up for trader buddies that are about ready to go, it wouldn't be a bad idea to try getting them mailed out no later than Saturday if you'd like to save a little money.

On the subject, it'll be somewhat outdated soon, but check out my Shipping Tips post from last month if you missed it.

9 comments:

  1. Sweet Sabes auto! If he could have just stayed healthy for two or three more years he'd have s strong case for Cooperstown.

    The post office never fails to piss me off. Has there been a year in our adult lives when the rates haven't increased? I've got a decent stack of stamps but will have to be more selective about shipping anything larger than a PWE. (Glad we got our trade completed before the rate increase!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The constant increase of postal shipping rates is the reason I rarely send out anything other than PWEs anymore. Speaking of which, I probably need to put some PWEs together soon. Been a while since I've sent anything out to anyone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Damn, I was just at the PO today, and they didn't say anything. You'd think they would have it posted there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the heads up on postage!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Damn. That's quite the increase. Thanks for the heads up.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I hadn't heard about the zone shipping til now. Ugh.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Huh, I checked out the shipping. The price for sending out a 2 ounce letter actually goes down a penny due to the lowering of the extra ounce stamp by 6 cents. That helps for some of the thicker PWEs.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yeah, it's good that the extra ounce / non-machinables will be going down, but it appears that small bubble envelopes will go up by a whole dollar. At least compared to what I pay to send them thru PayPal. Mailers from the first couple ounces have been running $2.66. Now they're listed at retail for $3.66. Maybe it will fall a little short of that since PayPal direct is discounted from retail.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The forever stamps increase bugged me. I complained on Twitter and people get very passionate about it, especially pro-USPS people.

    ReplyDelete