The USPS and the World of Stamp CollectingEven before
many philatelists had the thought of the hobby of stamp collection,
it is rather obvious that the act of exchanging letters through a centralized
system, which would recognize stamps as payment to cover carriage costs
would have to be put in place. The United States Postal Service predates
the American Philatelic Society (APS), which is the biggest society
of philatelists and collectors in the entire world.
While the numbers are overwhelming, the huge network of the USPS means one good thing to the stamp collectors and philatelists that the issue of a huge volume of stamps with great varieties is being delivered to millions of homes every day. To approximate more closely, the USPS delivers 212 billion pieces of mail on average of 144 million houses. The USPS encourages the philatelists and stamp enthusiasts in other active avenues, other than simply delivering letters to the public. In fact, the USPS is the primary source of stamps that are continuously being collected by philatelists in the United States of America, and subsequently, the rest of the world. USPS and the stamps it issues every year is not the singular pulse of the staff of USPS. In addition to this, the designs of the USPS stamps beat the pulse of the entire nation that will reflect the American history at its best. Every year, the postal service receives thousands of design proposals from Americans on thousands of themes that may be featured in stamps. The Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) goes over this huge volume of submissions in order to recommend to the Postmaster General regarding the subjects for consideration, which may have to be educational and interesting. Because the CSAC employs no assistance or staff for its purposes, it takes a huge amount of time before a stamp is taken into consideration. Subject submissions must be done in writing to provide each submission have an equal opportunity of being reviewed and selected. A design proposed for a particular year must be submitted three years in advance of the proposed date of issuance. If the
stamp proposal meets the requirements of CSAC, it may be chosen one
of the subjects to forward for the approval of the Postmaster General.
The submissions may undergo to courses of action-either they will be
rejected completely or put for future consideration. If the subject
is chosen from the thousands of submissions that will be one out of
25 stamp proposals, recommended to make commemorative stamps. These commemorative stamps are made accessible to the public and to the philatelists through the various USPS postal offices as well as the convenient USPS Postal Store along with the regular stamps issues of the Postal Service. In the Postal Store, the public is offered stamps for mailing purposes, leisure purposes, collecting, and for education. The USPS
encourages the continually growing hobby of philately and stamp collecting.
Through its help, Americans and enthusiasts worldwide are given access
to a continuous supply of stamps and assurance that the stamps will
keep on reflecting the strong and vibrant American spirit.
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