US Forever Stamps - A Second Look

A few months ago we posted our thoughts on the US "Forever Stamp" - how we thought it would affect collectors of United States stamps.

Well, here is another thought, after giving it a few months:

Based on the percentages of different types of stamps that we see on both household and commercial mail, the Forever stamp appears to be extremely popular with people and businesses that are sending 1 ounce letter-rate first class mail. There are 4 varieties of the Forever Stamp (for now), which means stamp collectors can look for those varieties.

But the downside for stamp collectors is a big one: in addition to businesses, which never used many commemorative stamps for their mailings, now many "regular people" are foregoing the use of commemorative stamps - and even definitive stamps other than the Forever stamp - when posting their mail. Receiving a letter that's been posted with a commemorative stamp is becoming a somewhat scarce event. This apparent reliance of most mailers on just a few different stamps makes it very difficult for collectors to assemble collections of postally used recent stamps.

The percentage of commemorative stamps used on US mailings is probably now down to somewhere between 5 and 10% when commercial mailings and household mailings are both taken into account. The percentage is somewhat higher than that for household mailings, but the overall percentage is dragged down significantly when commercial mailings (probably not even 5% use commemoratives) are factored into the average.

'Tis a sad time for US commemorative stamp collectors who focus on postally used stamps. And we have yet to see whether the Forever stamps will blossom into enough different face-similar varieties to challenge collectors the way that the Flag Over Porch series has.