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Completeness.

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

Each year after the last stamps are issued, the U-S Postal Service publishes a 
Stamp Yearbook. It's an album with spaces for each of the commemorative stamps, 
a single copy of each stamp, and the little plastic mounts with which to put the 
stamps in the album.

This year, though, there's a twist: The yearbook has gone DOWN in price 5 dollars, 
but it now contains spaces for what the Postal Service calls “mail-use stamps” 
and collectors call “definitives:” The workhorse stamps that see the most use, like 
flags and Forever stamps.

However, the kit DOESN'T contain those stamps.

If you want them, that's an extra 17-and-a-half dollars. You could buy the stamps 
yourself for maybe TWO dollars, but good luck finding them...and buying just ONE 
of each is next to impossible.

The Yearbooks used to include the Christmas and holiday stamps. Now you'll have to 
pay extra for them. Even the stamps commemorating the 20th anniversary of The 
Simpsons T-V show are in the extra-cost packet.

Many stamp collectors want completeness. They DON'T want empty album spaces staring 
them in the face. So it looks as if the cost of the Stamp Yearbook really went UP 
this year -- a lot

And that's stamp collecting this week. I'm Lloyd de Vries.

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