Sender Now Can Put Own Image Design on Stamp
August 12, 2004 | Levent OZLER
Breaking with tradition, the U.S. Postal Service has approved stamps bearing the likeness of a living person: you.
Stamps.com today announces a service that allows people to design their own postage -- from kids to cats to corporate logos -- on their computers.
"It makes mailing a little more exciting," says Stamps.com CEO Ken McBride.
The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company received exclusive permission from USPS to test their product, dubbed PhotoStamps.
A sheet of 20 self-adhesive, 37-cent PhotoStamps costs $16.99, more than twice the $7.40 cost of a sheet of traditional First Class stamps. (There's also a $2.99-per-order shipping and handling charge.) The personalized stamps also are available in other denominations, including 23-cent postcard (20 for $13.99) and $3.85 1-pound Priority Mail (20 for $89.99).
The process is simple: Log on to photostamps.com, upload an image, edit the design, place an order. The stamps arrive in four to seven business days. Next to the design is a bar code and unique serial number to prevent counterfeiting.
PhotoStamps fall under the USPS regulations for metered mail, so they are exempt from regular-stamps rules such as no living people can be featured and those dead must be gone for 10 years (except for historic and presidential stamps).
But there are PhotoStamp limits: no
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