Saturday, January 7, 2012

Mail Artists its time to pull our weight!

We all know that postal costs are going up, but what we seem to be over looking is that so often we send our post under weight. In Australia the postal international letter rates for weights at the present moment are: up to 50g $2.35, over 50g up to 125g $4.70 and over 125g up to 250g is $7.05. Its easy to go just over and have to play the next rate.

I call on all mail artists to take control of your postal rates by getting a digital scale and use the post office rate book to work out your own post to its maximum rate. Also it means by buying stamps and using them at home you get real stamps rather than the print out labels. Also remember when you get a piece of mail with an unfranked stamp its good to send back into the network to support your fellow artists.

5 comments:

  1. Hi David - good call. I'll look into a set of scales as I hope to do more 'snail mail' work this year.
    Last year I sent a package with what I thought were unfranked stamps (not from you) and the recipient was charged. Never mind; it was a forgiving friend.
    The Royal Mail (UK) may be using a franking method which is much less visible to the naked eye. Perhaps I am contributing to dis or misinformation although it may be worth checking how stamps are being cancelled.
    I found this informative wiki -
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancellation_(mail)
    I was and am happy to see my field hares successfully burrowed and found their way to you and flattered to see a Tasmanian monument to their mythic journey.
    To 2012 and all who post in her
    Regards,
    Julian Beere

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  2. Hi Julian
    sounds like they might be bar marking the stamps, but I do know that its a big business on ebay, stamp collectors selling unfranked stamps for reuse, so it might just be a case of at your own risk.
    Thank you for the great Field page.
    best wishes
    david

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  3. For many years when we lived in London I used to buy bags of used stamps from an old tramp like character in Cheshire Street market. A quid a bag and it took me a couple of hours to sort through them. I usually found 7 - 10 quids worth of unfranked stamps which I used again to keep up my mail art habit. When we moved up here to Cheshire we used the Oxfam bags for a while but they were less abundant in unfranked stamps and seem to have priced themselves out of the market now. So thankfully I still have the internet!
    BTW Hi Julian - nice to see you on here!

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  4. Hi Michael
    Good to hear from you, best for 2012, will look out for stamps for you.
    yours
    David

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  5. All the best for 2012 David! My mail art habit is such now that I can sustain myself on one or two stamps per week!

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