No good deed goes unpunished

Oct 23, 2007 5 Replies

So, seeing as how I have custody of a swap box that's already been around twice and a pile of patterns that I intended to list on Ebay some day as well as SABLE several times over, I sat down this weekend and went through it, looking for bears and tea and coffee and such. I gathered a large pile of patterns including some magazines, then I went through my floss, pulling out doubles. Pulled some smaller cuts of linen in white and brown and in some colors I'm not as likely to use and I thought to myself: package this stuff separately from the patterns, because they'll ship more cheaply.



Well, no. Book rate doesn't apply to leaflets. And it's apparently not acceptable to re-ship magazines at all. And what I thought was a flat rate envelope wasn't. But that's ok. At least my favorite postal guy (he's grumpy as hell to just about everybody, but seems to like me) ignored the fact that I told him that there are magazines in the one package. Did warn me that it could be opened and sent back postage due at some point, but I'll take my chances.



On the bright side, I got to fondle my stash which tends to increase the likelihood that I'll actually stitch something sometime soon.



Elizabeth


From experience, just shove what ever you can into a flat rate priority mailer and send it off. If you couldn't send on old magazines, there are ton of people who would go out of business on eBay.

C

My Post Office has told me that magazines cannot go Media Mail, because they contain advertising. They also cannot go Parcel Post for the same reason. The only way I CAN send them is priority ( or first class if really lightweight) mail.

Strange how the interpretation of rules varies, isn't it?

Gill

I *think* parcel post is okay....there's also a special rate for "bound printed matter" that doesn't restrict it based on advertising and is usually lower cost than parcel post.

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And the parcel post description on this page doesn't mention advertising exemptions, whereas the "media mail" description specifically states "no advertising"
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Don't laugh too hard: part of my problem has been identifying and securing flat rate mailers from the USPS web site. What I thought was a flat rate envelope wasn't. Oh well. I'm learning the hard way, since I've been off-loading (yarn) stash on Ebay.

Elizabeth

I just go to the PO - much easier - flat rate is written on the boxes and envelopes...

BTW - you're a generous pricer. Cheryl

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