Postage

Semi-postals are alien to the U.S. Postal Service, but many foreign countries issue such stamps to raise money for charitable and nonprofit organizations. On Thursday, West Germany and West Berlin will issue their annual sports semi-postals, which will benefit a broad range of sports programs. The West German designs show scenes of handball, 100+50 pfennigs, and exercises, 100+60 pfennigs. West Berlin's semi-postals promote water polo, 100+50 pfennigs, and wheelchair basketball, 100+60 pfennigs.

Press releases plugging the forthcoming $100-a-plate Chester County Republican dinner were mailed to various news organizations this week with the postage paid courtesy of county taxpayers. The releases, describing where the dinner will be held, who the key speaker is, and how tickets can be purchased, were mailed in envelopes bearing the name "County of Chester" in the return address and were stamped with metered-mail cancellation seals from the county's mailroom. However, the releases were actually from the Chester County Republican Committee.

The man on the phone said he had a package for the Center City lawyer. Postage due: $11.04. The deliveryman would be in the office building lobby in five minutes. Lawyer David W. Marston, a former U.S. attorney, smelled a scam - just like the one that had cost him $11.37 for a professionally wrapped rock a month ago. So he assembled some helpers and nabbed the fake deliveryman in the lobby of the ARA Building at 11th and Market streets and held him for the police, who locked him up. Inside the box the man had brought for Marston was a Daily News.

The recent announcement that the U.S. Postal Service was discontinuing use of postage-due stamps has revived some debate among collectors about the stamps themselves, but not their demise. Some collectors refuse to accept postage-dues in the same category as commemoratives or definitives, and others ridicule postage-dues as mere labels that should not have been affixed on letters and other mailing matters. Postage-dues, introduced in 1859 by France and first used in the United States in 1879, were affixed on mailing matter that lacked sufficient postage; the amount due was paid by recipients.

Former Chester County District Justice Carl W. Henry was held for trial Friday for allegedly pocketing more than $30,000 from the Parkesburg court where he once presided. According to testimony at his preliminary hearing, Henry overbilled the county for postage expenses from 1985 through 1988, depositing most of the missing money into his personal account at Brandywine Savings & Loan. Late last year, county audit supervisor Donald Readler noticed a marked rise in the money the county paid to Henry's court for postage after 1984, and he began an investigation.

"The check's stuck in the mail" is right up there with "The dog ate my homework" in the ranks of famed (and shamed) excuses. It usually comes from a consumer, though - not from one of the nation's best-known financial institutions. Yet that was the basic explanation given yesterday by General Motors Acceptance Corp. for hundreds of uncashed deposits that were held in limbo - some since late last month, customers say - at Philadelphia's main post office instead of being delivered to GMAC Bank, a subsidiary based in Horsham.

Meet Dr. Paul Dudley White. Get to know him, because there are 540 million three-cent stamps out there that carry his picture. Now that it takes a quarter to send a letter by first- class postage, you'll be seeing a lot of Dr. White. The three-centers are needed for combining with leftover 22-cent stamps. Some 600 million three-cent stamps are currently in circulation, including a new one displaying a rear-view of a Conestoga wagon. It debuted Feb. 29 in the town for which the wagon was named, Conestoga, Pa. The historic wagon was used by many of the country's early 19th-century pioneers to settle the Ohio Valley.

The country went into postage panic yesterday. At post offices throughout the area and the nation, the passage of the 29- cent stamp into history triggered a frantic rush of stamp buying that snagged people in long lines and sent postal officials scrambling to restock supplies. Many post offices just ran out of stamps. Yesterday was the first business day under the new 32-cent first-class rate - an event postal officials thought they were ready for. But an onslaught of panic buying caught them totally by surprise.

Sara Nichols, the Willistown Democrat challenging U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon in the Seventh Congressional District, yesterday criticized Weldon for topping the Pennsylvania delegation in the use of free postage during an election year. From October 1993 through September 1994, Weldon spent $176,660 on taxpayer-funded postage for mail to his constituents, putting him first among the 21 House members from the state, and 51st among the 435 members of full House of Representatives, according to figures compiled by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.

Put down House Speaker John M. Perzel as paid in full. The Northeast Philadelphia Republican has completed a political about-face, reimbursing taxpayers the unpaid balance for a slick self-promotional DVD he sent to constituents and supporters during the summer. On Friday, Perzel's campaign committee handed the state a $21,930 check to cover the postage for 22,536 DVDs chronicling his April swearing-in as speaker. Previously, Perzel had agreed to repay the state about $35,000 to cover the DVD's production cost but steadfastly refused to pick up the postage, insisting it was an appropriate state-related expense.

BOB HOPE, the late comedian famed for his punchlines, "Road" movies, ski nose and tireless travel to entertain American troops is being honored with a 44-cent postage stamp today in ceremonies aboard the USS Midway in San Diego. "I think that he would be thrilled, absolutely honored and love the thought of it," his daughter Linda Hope said. "It would also be an opportunity for him to get in a few jokes about the rise in the cost of postage," she added. The Postal Service has printed 100 million stamps featuring Hope and they are on sale nationwide.

"The check's stuck in the mail" is right up there with "The dog ate my homework" in the ranks of famed (and shamed) excuses. It usually comes from a consumer, though - not from one of the nation's best-known financial institutions. Yet that was the basic explanation given yesterday by General Motors Acceptance Corp. for hundreds of uncashed deposits that were held in limbo - some since late last month, customers say - at Philadelphia's main post office instead of being delivered to GMAC Bank, a subsidiary based in Horsham.

Remember PhotoStamps - real postage featuring your own snapshots? They're coming back. Under a one-year agreement with the U.S. Postal Service, Stamps.com on Monday will resume selling custom-made postage bearing photos submitted by customers. (You can order them online in advance.) The company debuted the stamps in August as an experiment in concert with the postal service. And though they were pricey, with each 37-cent stamp selling for roughly $1, they were popular, selling 2.7 million in six weeks.

Raise postage by a penny and we cry foul. But let us put a picture of Sparky, the motley family mutt, on a first-class stamp and we'll gleefully pay $1 for a 37-cent product. Such is the happy experience of Stamps.com, a West Coast company with exclusive permission from the U.S. Postal Service to generate postage bearing pictures of your baby, your puppy and you. This grand experiment was launched on Aug. 10. More than 1.5 million PhotoStamps have been sold since then, Stamps.

Two members of a local rock band were so happy with the new Automated Postal Center at the 30th Street Post Office that, as they finished putting postage on their packages Wednesday, they began hugging the kiosk. Jason Simkins, singer and guitarist, and Brian Beck, drummer, were using the Philadelphia center to send out press kits for their band, Snoozebox. On Wednesday, they sent out 40 press kits for about $50 in postage, and the day before, they sent out 30 kits for about $40. "I prefer doing it this way," Beck said.

Would you pay $1.48 for a free quarter? That's the bottom line in an advertisement that appeared yesterday in The Inquirer. "Remaining PA state quarters are to be given free to state residents," read the ad's headline. The U.S. Monetary Exchange, a private company, promised to mail "mint fresh," uncirculated quarters with the Pennsylvania seal to people who send three first-class postage stamps to a post office box in zip code area 44309, which turns out to be Akron, Ohio.

Put down House Speaker John M. Perzel as paid in full. The Northeast Philadelphia Republican has completed a political about-face, reimbursing taxpayers the unpaid balance for a slick self-promotional DVD he sent to constituents and supporters during the summer. On Friday, Perzel's campaign committee handed the state a $21,930 check to cover the postage for 22,536 DVDs chronicling his April swearing-in as speaker. Previously, Perzel had agreed to repay the state about $35,000 to cover the DVD's production cost but steadfastly refused to pick up the postage, insisting it was an appropriate state-related expense.

A current hit on the screen and a best-selling literary trilogy, The Lord of the Rings now makes its postal appearance. Royal Mail of Britain will issue 10 special stamps Feb. 26 to observe the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first two parts of the epic series: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. The stamp designs depict drawings - nine by the author John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) and the other by his son Christopher - of locations in the book as imagined by Tolkien.

The federal anti-spam law signed last week by President Bush aims to stem the deluge of offensive, fraudulent and unwanted e-mails that flood the nation's inboxes. Experts said the law, which will take effect Jan. 1 and includes rules for commercial e-mail senders, was a step in the right direction. And several other measures also promise hope for controlling spam. Technology, of course, is key in fighting spam. Besides software and hardware filtering systems that block spam from inboxes, reengineering the e-mail system to prevent unscrupulous spammers from annoying and defrauding consumers is under discussion.

Britain, which issued the first adhesive postage stamp, in 1840, has conceived another clever scheme that is sure to be popular with letter-writers. Royal Mail issued a block of six stamps on Tuesday, each printed with a selection of three messages that can be checked off by the senders. And just in time for Valentine's Day. Little blank boxes precede the 18 different messages. A check mark is printed above each blank to encourage people to reveal their thoughts. "With these special multiple-choice boxes, you can even make the stamp part of the fun," said Gavin Macrae, Royal Mail's director of stamps and collectibles.