Fellow penny-pinchers

Are you paying 49 cents to mail a letter first class in the U.S. today? If so, why? I am paying like 35 cents, a 30-percent discount.

The secret: Do not buy your stamps at the post office but rather at a stampand-coin expo like the one in Carthage, Mo., just over the border. The next expo is in July.

Thirty, 40, 50 years ago, many children (like me) were stamp collectors, especially commemorative stamps that featured Hollywood stars, athletes and events, like state centennials. You can buy $100 worth of perfectly good U.S. stamps for $70, and if the storage was good the glue will hold and you can use them to mail letters. So, three 13-cent stamps plus one 10-cent stamp will mail a first class letter today and it costs you only 35 cents.

P.S. Organize a carpool to get there so as to save expensive Arabian gas money.

John Cornwell Bella Vista