Advertising in United States Stamp Booklets

There isn’t any! That is, there isn’t any commercial advertising designed to sell a product. And there never was. Not even commercial advertising designated as being tasteful or an announcement “sponsored by” any non-government organization. The United States has never allowed stamp booklets to convey messages other than those of the Post Office or the Department of the Treasury. Commercial advertising has never appeared on the covers or interleaves of a United States stamp booklet.

In November 1980, Representative Barry Goldwater, Jr. of California introduced HR 8367which would allow private companies to issue stamps with their logos. It was commonly known as the Free Enterprise Postage Stamp Act. The bill provided for an advisory board that would review corporate bids and recommend those that would be to the economic advantage of the Postal Service. The minimum cost was to be $10,000 for 50,000 stamps. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service but was never enacted.

There have been some attempts by private companies to use stamp booklets to promote the sale of commercial products. Safeway, the grocery supermarket chain, issued a small book of coupons which offered savings on such grocery items as canned salmon, ice cream, apple juice, batteries, cookies, and toothpaste. Inside the coupon book was a stamp booklet valid for U. S. Postage. The entire book with postage stamps and coupon bargains sold at a discount of 10 percent of the face value of the postage. This program only lasted a few years. It was conducted in the Washington, DC and Denver, CO areas in the late 1980’s.

Another program to try to sell store products by offering discount postage along with the product was conducted by Thrift Drug Co. in the mid-1990’s. They offered $3.20 in U. S. Postage plus 10 envelopes for $2.99 if you purchased two greeting cards (Figure 1). This program also ran for a short time.

Figure 1. A Postage Pack offered by Thrift Drug Co. using a $3.20 stamp booklet and envelopes as an incentive to sell greeting cards.

These two attempts to link commercial advertising and the selling of products with U. S. Postage have not produced revenues for the sponsoring companies. Had they yielded financial gains, other companies would have duplicated the efforts of Safeway and Thrift Drug. Since this hasn’t happened it is assumed the experimental programs by Safeway and Thrift Drugs were not financially successful. Thrift Drug is no longer in business.

Informational messages to help the postal patron have appeared in U.S. stamp booklets since the first booklet was issued. These messages included domestic and foreign mailing rates, the proper way to address a letter, and the best times to post a letter. Messages about special delivery, foreign postal rates, postal money orders, and the registry system were the predominant messages. Many back covers of the stamp booklets showed the Model Form of Address for Letters (Figure 2). As with the messages of Use Zip Code and Mail Early in the Day slogans on stamp sheets and in stamp booklets, these messages served the purposes of the postal service. It was assumed that if the public was better informed, the postal service would become more efficient.

Figure 2. Back cover of a 1917 stamp booklet with an information message to postal patrons to help move the mail; a form of advertisement.

Messages for the Treasury Department included advocating buying Treasury Savings Certificates for Investment and “Buy . . . Hold United States Savings Bonds.”

The covers of some stamp booklets contain application coupons to join clubs and sell products. In 1968, the booklet of stamps (Oliver Wendell Holmes) provided a coupon to join the Souvenir Page Club. The cost to subscribe was $20. In 1987, the Steam Locomotives booklet of stamps contained a coupon to join the United States Postal Service (USPS) Commemorative Stamp Club. The cost was $19.95 for the 1988 program.

The booklet of stamps (Apples and Oranges) invited people to visit the Postal Store Web site (Figure 3.).

The Web site lists the products the USPS has for sale in addition to current services. Over 99 percent of the listings of items for sale pertaining to stamps, preparation of mailings, and postage rates—domestic and foreign. But there are also a few commercial products for sale, such as, shipping supplies, magazine subscriptions, and greeting cards.

Figure 3. Advertisement promoting a Web site for the Postal Store on the back cover of the Apple and Oranges booklet. Notice that the extension is .com for commercial, not .gov for government

Many people think that the cost to mail a letter is high, but the fact is that postage rates in the United States are among the lowest in the world. When revenue is generated through government advertising, less revenue has to be generated from the sale of stamps.