Rate increase puts stamps in demand

Postal customers face long wait to get their 2 cents' worth

It’s just 2 cents – like what gets stuck in your couch cushions or thrown into a conversation when you don’t have much to say.

But since the cost of a first-class postage stamp jumped from 37 cents to 39 cents earlier this week, there’s been a run for the 2-cent stamps that make up the difference between the new and old rates.

“A lot of people need them; a lot of people have been buying them,” Lawrence Postmaster Judy Raney said.

Postal Service officials in Lawrence expect to sell 250,000 of the extra stamps before things calm down and people adjust to the new rate, Raney said. Customers by Tuesday had snatched up an estimated 150,000 of the stamps in Lawrence since rates changed Sunday.

“I think some people have been buying more than they need,” Raney said.

Some other local outlets for stamps have had trouble keeping the 2-cent stamps in stock.

After buying a sheet of 2-cent stamps, John Jewell, Lawrence, foreground left, adds them to his 37-cent-stamped envelopes before mailing them at the downtown Lawrence post office. In the background, other post office customers purchase books of stamps from a vending machine. Stamp vendors are seeing a run on 2-cent stamps since the new first-class postal rate kicked in Sunday.

Shawn Brown, store manager at Hy-Vee Food Store, 4000 W. Sixth St., said 2-cent stamps had been out of stock occasionally the past two days at the store.

“There’s obviously been a lot of people who still have the 37-cent stamps,” Brown said.

The store hadn’t received the new 39-cent stamps yet, so demand for the tiny-denomination postage had been high, he said.

Brown said the store by Tuesday had plenty of 2-cent stamps on hand.

As the line at the downtown post office snaked toward the counter Tuesday, a clerk yelled out above the hum of the customers.

“Anybody just here to pick up packages?” he asked. No one moved.

“Anyone need 2-cent stamps?”

Maria David raised her hand and stepped toward the counter.

She bought a few stacks of them – these were blue and sold on stiff, square sheets – then headed back out.

“I just wanted to be prepared,” she said.