Going plateless
Last week, I had the opportunity to fill in in the mail room at work. While “playing mailman,” I got to exchange pleasantries with the various mail carriers and other shipping service drivers who deliver to the office.
One day, Joe the mail carrier was a bit behind schedule because his mail truck had broken down. He mentioned that the truck, which was built in 1987, has around 450,000 miles on its original engine (which has not surprisingly been rebuilt).
I joked that Joe could probably get license plates identifying his truck as an antique, but he caught me off guard when he replied that USPS trucks don’t need plates.
Once I thought about it, I realized he was right; I’ve never seen a license plate on one of the little white trucks that carriers to deliver mail in the city. On the personal vehicles rural carriers use, sure—but never on the USPS-owned vehicles.
This little revelation left me wanting answers, so I did a bit of research. It turns out that USPS-owned mail trucks are not required to have license plates per federal regulations instituted in 1973. Who knew?
Have any other odd tidbits about the mail? Leave the details in a comment.
Make your own pages
No, I’m not giving up on The Philosateleian—but if you need album pages for something other than United States stamps, you can create your own using the FreeStampAlbum.com beta.
Shameless plug: this major update to Philosateleia’s sister site makes it easy to create stamp album pages. Simply enter a caption for each of your stamps, plus each stamp’s width and height, and FreeStampAlbum.com will take care of laying out the pages for you. This is easier than manually arranging each page; trust me, I speak from experience.
If you have a moment, check out the upgraded site. Comments, questions, and suggestions are very welcome.
Fall 2012 update for The Philosateleian
The Fall 2012 Supplement (274 KB, 4 files, 15 pages) for The Philosateleian U.S. Stamp Album is now available for download!
This supplement adds spaces for regular U.S. stamps issued since early June, including the final stamps in the 2008–12 Flags of Our Nation series and a new addition to the 2010–12 Scouting series. Spaces are also added for this year’s duck stamps, and additional details are provided for varieties of the 2012 Aloha Shirts and Four Flags stamps.
Naturally, these new pages are completely free. (If you want to show your support, that’s welcome, but not required.) Get the supplement now!