I need to request some documents from a school in Japan. Their web site says to send a self-addressed stamped envelope, and if I can’t get Japanese stamps, send an International Reply Coupon (IRC) instead.
However, apparently the US Postal Service no longer sells IRCs (can’t find a good cite, but this PDF mentions it being discontinued). So what other options remain?
(I do have family in Japan so I can get them to send one. I’m just curious to know what my options would be if I were in a similar situation, and I had no family or friends in the country I’m trying to get documents from.)
Well, one could always join The Straight Dope Message Board and publicize his plight thereon, whereupon some Japan-based Doper would surely offer you the necessary assistance!
You can always get international reply coupons from another country; the coupons are good for the amount of a non-priority postage from the country where they are redeemed to the country where they were issued, but there is no requirement that the reply is actually sent to the country that issued the IRC. So you could get coupons from, say, Canada, and the school in Japan can redeem them and still send their reply to the U.S. (provided that the non-priority postage from Japan to the U.S. is the same as from Japan to Canada, which I assuem is very likely the case).
Even years before the USPS stopped selling IRCs earlier this year I had trouble finding a USPS location that had any to sell me. But there are many available on EBay. Just be sure to buy one that is still valid, and not a collectible expired one. I’ve seen US-issued IRCs there valid until the end of this year selling for $3 to $10 including shipping.