Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again
Personalized postage approved despite Unabomber, Lewinsky glitch
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Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again
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Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again -
Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again -
Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again -
Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again -
Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again -
Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again -
Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again -
Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again -
Vanity Stamps Go Postal Again
APRIL 26--Congratulations to our friends at Stamps.com, who are poised to relaunch their fabulous personalized postage program thanks to a decision announced yesterday by the U.S. Postal Service. The Santa Monica firm last year took part in a USPS pilot program that allowed consumers to customize postage with photos of babies, pets, and bucolic scenes. By all measures, the seven-week market test was a roaring success...though there was that one glitch. As you may recall, TSG was able to order stamps with a variety of distinctive images, including the below 37-cent stamp featuring Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the New York couple executed in 1953 for spying for the Soviet Union. On the succeeding pages you'll find stamps honoring Monica Lewinsky's blue dress (the one splattered with Bill Clinton's DNA); Linda Tripp; deposed Yugoslavian ethnic cleanser/war criminal Slobodan Milosevic; MIA labor racketeer Jimmy Hoffa; executed Romanian dictator/Communist oppressor Nicolae Ceaucescu; former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey and alleged gay lover Golan Cipel; and high school and college yearbook photos of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who used the postal service to deliver his homemade bombs. Despite that little bump in the road, USPS brass announced yesterday that the personalized stamps program will be put out to bid Wednesday, with a year-long test expected to last through May 2006 (within 20 days of receiving USPS authorization, a vendor will be allowed to start peddling personalized postage). Since Stamps.com has already handled the trial run, the firm is likely set to resume its PhotoStamps program next month. News of the USPS decision has today driven the online postage firm's stock price up about 20 percent, to its highest point in nearly five years. (9 pages)
