Have you seen those beautiful envelopes with their gorgeous vintage postage collages? It can be so fun to put together images that match your invitations and tell a personal story through the pictures! There are a few things to consider when putting together the postage for your wedding invitations. Let’s take a look.
Some history
Most school children in the United States know about Benjamin Franklin being appointed the first Post Master General of the United States in 1775. But, there is a great deal more to the history of the USPS that includes opening of new post offices with the establishing of new towns and the fact that postage used to be due on delivery rather than prepaid! This changed with the introduction of postage stamps in 1847 in New York City and the next day in Boston. These were national issue postage stamps, although regional stamps had existed prior to the Congress passing an act that led to the engraving of the first postage stamps. The intricate designs of old postage stamps are the result of engravers creating the intricate designs by hand! This continued until relatively recently when the printing was privatized and consists mostly of offset lithography. For more on the history of postage stamps, you can take a look at this article, but we’ll continue on to talk about how to use vintage postage.
How much postage do you actually need?
That’s the big question isn’t is, how much postage? To find out the most accurate rate for your invitations, it’s important to take the complete invitation set to the post office where you will be mailing them from and have them weighed. The full invitation suite! This way you know exactly how much you need as the scales at post offices can vary a little bit. You can weigh the invitations on your kitchen scale to purchase postage ahead of time, but you will want to verify the total with the post office before mailing all the invitations.
How much does postage cost?
One thing to consider when purchasing vintage postage is the cost. You will be paying more than the actual postage amount you need when using vintage postage. Because the vintage stamps have sales values that are different from their face value, the cost will vary based on popularity of the stamp and the amount on the face. You might also consider that the money you are spending on vintage postage goes to individual resellers of postage stamps rather than the USPS. This means that the money for those stamps was often paid decades ago to the USPS and that the USPS is making zero money on delivering envelopes with vintage stamps.
Why should we care about the USPS getting money? If you’ve been following the news, the USPS is actually struggling to stay afloat. The USPS is not funded by the United States government, but the actual sales that they make from sales of postage and other items. Vintage postage is actually hurting the USPS because of this and it would be a shame if we couldn’t mail invitations through the mail anymore. So something to consider is combining current postage with vintage postage to support the USPS while taking advantage of the beauty and fun of creating a custom, vintage postage collage.
What can you do with vintage postage stamps?
There are many different ways to combine vintage stamps on your envelopes. One way is to match postage stamp colors to your invitation’s colors. Another way to use vintage postage would be to curate the postage so that the look and imagery of the postage tells a story. There are many stamps that reference different states (in the US) and many different flowers, animals and even certain organizations, presidents and famous historical figures. There are so many stories that can be told just through the postage stamp images. It takes some time to go through and find the right stamps to tell the story, but it does create such a special and unique touch to the envelopes you are mailing.
Try writing up a little bit about your unique story that you would like to share, maybe where you are from, where your wedding is and other little details that can then be translated into images using postage!
Where can I find vintage postage?
Vintage postage can be found from various Etsy sellers and other websites who specialize in putting together vintage stamp collages. I’m also happy to help you curate stamps to create a beautiful story for your envelopes when working on your invitations.
I hope you enjoy your search for vintage postage and let me know if I can help you in any way. Do you have any questions about vintage postage? Leave them below and I will get back to you!
