JUBILEE STAMPS

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 163, 19 July 1935, Page 7

JUBILEE STAMPS

WHY DESTROY THE SURPLUS? NATURAL QUESTION ANSWERED “Why destroy unsold Jubilee stamps?” is a question which has been put by a number of newspaper correspondents throughout New Zealand, and there has been at least one editorial suggestion that the surplus stocks of Silver Jubilee stamps should be put up to the highest bidder at intervals. But the unused Jubilee stamps (there is not a large stock of them) will be destroyed, for reasons which will probably be generally appreciated , when they are explained. The process does not involve much waste of material, though it avoids a considerable public loss which would be caused if these stamps were sold at less than their face value. What has been destroyed? To the Post Office so many pieces of paper of very small cost, though if they went into circulation they would immediately command the value denoted upon them, for the reason that the Post Office is prepared to render service to the amount specified. For instance, it will carry a letter across the world for a Jubilee Id. stamp, or send it very speedily byair mail to the United Kingdom for 1/6. If surplus stamps were sold to the highest bidder at bargain rates they could be used to secure these postal services at a cost less than that paid by those members of the public who had not enjoyed the thrill of a bargain sale. In the case of the Jubilee stamps, a stock-taking -was arranged, the results telegraphed to headquarters, and deficiencies in stocks in one area filled from surplus in another. This enabled sales to be maintained until June 22nd, and so carefully had supply been balanced against demand that in the General Post Office itself only nine stamps of one paritcular Jubilee denomination remained in the bulk stock. However, as two thousand offices throughout the Dominion had had to be supplied with stocks for public sale, there was an inevitable surplus after June 22, and this was returned to the General Post Office to be destroyed. Ample notice was given of the withdrawal, and simultaneous action avoided encouragement to speculators. The Post Office is concerned only with the service-value of the stamps it sells, though philatelists can tell many stories of special stamp issues made for their benefit and for the particular profit of sundry small countries of the world. A certain Eastern King who officially opened a new seaport celebrated the event with the issue, for one day only, of an appropriate stamp. There was such a tremendous rush to the only post office at which it was available that people climbed on the roof and in the melee two persons were killed and several injured .