I was debating what to write about for my actual first philatelic article and how I should approach it. I decided to write about a new area of collecting that I started about 5 years ago – US postal cards. Back in 2002, while searching for philatelic articles I came across James Majka’s postal stationery web page and decided to join the United States Postal Stationery Society. When I read the Linn’s stamp news, I always enjoyed the two articles on Stamp market tips and Tip of the week, it always gives me the knowledge and thrill to go look for those philatelic treasures mentioned. Therefore, I like to give that kind of hope and interest to my readers as as well.

This is where it all began, a whole new world of collecting mint/used stationery. However, tonight I want to share with you some of the knowledge I gained from this collecting area. The USPS about 30 years ago decided to increase the domestic postcard surface postage to 8-cents on March 2, 1974. About a little over a year later, the postal people decided to give us a break on the ever increasing postal rates, by reducing it by 1-cent. On September 14, 1975 the cost of sending a domestic postcard only cost 7-cents, but before you can say “what the heck, happen?” about less than 3 months, they decided to increased the postcard rate again to 9-cents on December 31,1975.

Therefore, with this short postal card rate, the scott# UX68 card was only used correctly about 2.5 months. This is probably the shortest-lived postal card rate and if pursue as a collecting area, it will open to a window of exciting chapter of modern postal history. So go on a treasure hunt for this properly used UX68 in dealer’s dollar box, antique stores, flea market and if you run out of luck, you can purchase a copy from any postal history dealer anywhere from $5-$10.