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For broadcast on CBS Radio Network affiliates December 10-11, 2005:

The devil is in the details.

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries. 

To most customers, post offices are selling a new Flag-and-Liberty stamp for next month's 
rate hike. Period. End of story.

To stamp collectors, though, there are several varieties, because the new 39-cent stamps -- 
which don't SAY 39 cents on them -- come in rolls, sheets and, eventually, even a version 
for A-T-M's. Although the basic design is the same, there are differences in each format.

But to a SPECIALIST, there are going to be many more flag-and-liberty stamps. That's because 
the Postal Service is using at least five printers, and each will have its own quirks.

Why use different printers? No one company has the capacity to print all the millions of 
these stamps the Postal Service needs. And different formats require different abilities.

Cataloguing all the varieties could keep a collector busy for awhile.

Then, next month, we get to do it all again, when the version that DOES say "thirty-nine 
cents" comes out.

And that's Stamp Collecting this week. 

I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News. 

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