Discussion Forums - USPS Postal Regulations

i've bought stamps before from the apc machine at the post office.

it's been a while i guess, and today when mailing some things, i got 40 stamps from the machine.

to my surprise, they weren't actual stamps. i mean, yes, they are stamps, but they aren't the normal stamps. these look like you could have printed them on the home computer and printer.

how dissappointing! i will try to avoid buying them from the machine in the future.

Usually the APC machine has two options ... Buy Stamps, and Buy Stamps of a Different Value. (or at least that's how my machine works).

Buy Stamps is books of "real" stamps, and Buy Stamps of a Different Value are the printed-on-demand stamps.

What I've seen the very few times I've used APC is what Sara described.  They dispense regular stamp books, in addition to the different value/custom denomination stickers that look alot like counter postage.

So Kim, are you seeing something different now?

Yeah, they are slowly changing out all the APC's to just print stamps, no more stamp books.  The stamp books that were in the APC were books of 18, not the 20 people are used to .  The APC uses ATM technology and it was easier to modify the book of stamps to the size and thickness of a dollar bill than to modify the machine to dispence regular books of stamps. 

Kim- I noticed yesterday that they had done this to the APC machine at my local P.O. too. I guess now it's going to dispense stamps like the ones you got, instead of the books of stamps it had always dispensed in the past.

TBH, I don't really care that much what they look like as long as my mail gets to where it's supposed to go!

what brandy said.

i guess i'll order stamps online like i have done in the past. i don't want boring black and white stamps.

yes, i bought forever stamps, not another denomination.