So my wife infiormed me this morning she’s going to the library (site of a coin-op copying machine) to make some copies before she takes the thng she’s making the copies for to the Post Office, which she now has to do.
Wha? Why’s that? I ask.
New USPS regulation, she says – all non-standard envelopes must be taken to the Post Office now, not put out for pickup or dropped in a drop box.
But you’re mailing a standard 9x12 envelope, I say, not an odd-shaped greeting card or something that’s the USPS definition for ‘non-standard’.
Yeah, but I asked, and the counter lady at the post office said that they meant anything but a #10 envelope, she responds.
I went to check the USPS website, and they have all sorts of self-congratulatory press releases, and how to calculate the cost if you’re mailing an elephant to your aunt in Manhattan parcel post, and so on – but nothing about such a new regulation.
Anyone happen to know the story here? Preferably with a link to the actual USPS reg. (but don’t hesitate to answer even if you don’t have the link)?
On the mail boxes outside my post office there are stickers that say anything over 1 ounce (2 ounces?) MUST be brought inside. I’m thinking that’s what she’s referring to.
ETA, I have no idea what they do with bigger items (with the proper postage) that you put into the mail box though.
Does that mean you have to personally bring all your Netflix returns to the post office counter now? I suspect someone would have made some noise if it were true. There’re probably some miscommunications here…
An important pice of the puzzle is whether or not the postage is being paid in stamps or in machine-generated indicia…
IIRC, the 13 ounces with stamps cutoff is a legacy of the Unabomber and a perceived need to prevent anonymous mailing of packages.
If the mailed item is wearing metered postage (the old style pink ink on paper tape) or the newer print at home postage so common to eBay sales, both of those are traceable to the sender and can be dropped into a collection box if they fit, or as I do with the eBay stuff, it can be left at my front door for the carrier to pick up.
No problems for Netflix discs - they’re both under 13 ounces, and bearing machine-generated postage, so you can mail them from wherever you like.
It sounds to me like the OP’s wife is misinterpreting/misunderstanding something she read/heard. There haven’t been any recent changes that I’ve heard of. BTW my local post office has a copy machine in the P.O. box lobby. No need to go elsewhere.
Basically, the USPS went thru some pricing restructuring in the past few years, and part of their optimization was penalizing non-standard mail sizes, including large envelopes. I don’t know what the cutoff for “large” is, but 9 x 12 is pretty damn big. Also, stiff photo mailers (which I use to mail photos or computer disks) have a different rate that’s not based on just the weight. So, while I didn’t specifically know about the 9 x 12, I am not surprised.
No, 9 X 12 is a standard size for any 8 1/2 x 11 sheets being mailed flat (like a short story manuscript). There has been a surcharge for them for several years.
The Post Office has a postage calculator online. I plugged in the cost of a “large envelope,” 1 ounce, first class mail, and it came out as 88 cents. You can figure it out yourself with a very accurate kitchen scale and put extra stamps on, without having to go to the post office, as long as it’s not 13 ounces or more.
I often mail 8 1/2 x 11 reports in 9 x 12 envelopes as part of my business routine. It is acceptable to put them into the regular mail box, with the exception of the 13-ounce rule as stipulated above by gotpasswords.
I have a postal scale, so I can weigh things and put the proper stamps on them. If a mail piece is over 13 ounces I take it to the post office.
Another note: mail must be less than a certain thickness (I think 1/4 inch) or the postage is more. The lady at the post office has a handy cardboard guide to stick envelopes in, so as to see if they’re too thick. I run into this thickness issue all the time.
You can use a Flat-rate Priority Mail envelope and not worry about the thickness. I notice this Bookstore indicates that it can fit a book up to 1.5 inches thick in a Flat-rate Priority Mail envelope.