I’ve always enjoyed the thought of being part of a larger card community. I’ve noted before that there is no one around me who collects cards, therefore most of my card interactions are with card shop clerks who are trying to coax me into buying everything. And of course I do have people online that I deal with, but there’s always an associated cost with that — the cost of shipping. Now when I send cards, I know that putting cards in a plain white envelope and affixing a regular stamp to it will not cut it. I always weigh it on the USPS’ Automatic Postal Center and send it as a PARCEL — because I know that rate will always cost me enough that the cards to not get returned to be asking for more money. But it appears that others do not share this practice … and it is pissing me off.

For the second time in a week, I received a package that was stamped with the words “Postage Due.” The letter carrier held my package hostage until someone, anyone, forked over another 68 cents.

Yes, we’re talking 68 cents, less than the price of two addtional stamps, the cost of a dozen or so Jolly Ranchers or a pack of 1989 Topps in 1989. BUT the point is it should not have been this way. All the sender — who is a trader on The Bench — had to do was throw on two more stamps.

The crap part of the deal is that the cards I received were not even worth a much. I got six common 009 Allen & Ginter mini, three 2010 Bowman gold cards and a crappy 2010 Bowman Chrome USA common for my set.

How on earth did the sender think that two stamps on a Birthday Card-style large envelope would be enough to get the package here, especially with the added weight of a cardboard backing board inside to protect the cards?

Morale of the story: Make sure that you as the sender are putting enough postage on your envelopes. Seeing the words “Postage Due” can sour a deal and a trading relationship pretty quickly.

This entry was posted on August 10, 2010 at 7:05 am and is filed under Newspaperman with tags baseball, baseball cards, Postage Due, sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.