now Im second guessing myself. Maybe ill try one but making sure its super thin.

I think it’s always best to ask the receiving person if they would like a HH or not. Some people might not want to deal with one at the moment for a variety of reasons.

I thought about that too, but like a regular HH, if you dont want to bother with it, you just leave it in the box (envelope).

If I do decide to mail it, I would also add extra stamps in the HH pouch just in case it goes over an ounce for some people.

My hope would be that it would be planted somewhere, but it would fine if no one wanted to do that and it just gets returned back to me. I just thought it would be a great way to plant HH's in other states.

I would of course let people know from the beginning in my tracker that I was doing it so there are no surprises.

If you want to send me some. I always take my HHs when I go on vacation. I remembered the one that I left in Alaska last year, a few months later it was found and came back to New England

I sent one in a puzzle ring to a boxer who I know goes out and hunts regular traditional boxes---- I knew she would get a kick out of it and the HH had been lingering around my area for a while.... I think HHs are a fun "bonus" but I know some other's don't like them

Yesterday was the third Saturday in a row where my outgoing mail was not picked up, even though I had mailed delivered. Anyone else experiencing no mail pick up on Saturday? Just wondering if it's a new USPS thing or my mail carrier...

Thursday is the last day to sign up for this year's Secret Stamp Santa! All the info is on the tracker, but basically you'll send a stamp to someone, and receive a stamp from someone. Super easy!

Please contact me with questions, and if you sign up, don't forget to send me your address!

TG

This was discussed WAY back in time, when postals were the heavier padded envelopes. I see it has come up again recently, but now that micro-postals are the standard, and are supposed to be mailed in a regular envelope, be under 1/4" thick, and weigh less than 1oz, my questions are these:

1- If you are sending a HH in your own micro postal, are you including extra ounce stamps for the additional weight? Is it supposed to stay with your postal, or be planted in a traditional box?

2- Not a question, but please DON'T add a HH to someone else's micro postal without checking with that owner and getting their permission.

Good question and I dont have the answer for you, but I did send one in my postal.

I added options for folks on what to do with it ...lol

https://www.atlasquest.com/boxes/clue/?boxId=373321

as for putting it in someone else's postal, I didn't list that as an option. But I'm thinking that maybe I need to stress that in my clues as a DO NOT....

Are you doing a tracker for people to join?

I DO NOT like reusable envelopes for MicroPLBs.
Check AGREE if you agree with the above
Check DISAGREE if you do not

There have been discussions regarding home crafted reusable envelopes for MicroPLBs. They do not follow the guidelines for MicroPLBs as outlined in the Wiki Help pages on AQ.

First Class mail goes through rigorous sorting conditions that cause wear and tear with each trip through processing.

First Class mail requires a clean surface for the imprinting of the delivery destination barcode along the bottom 5/8” of the envelope. These barcodes smear on slick surfaces.

AQ Help Pages:
Are there any general postal guidelines for anyone new to postals? Bullet point #8

What are Best Practices for MicroPlbing?
Bullet point#12

I want to hit agree more than once!! We put time, effort and talent into creating these micro postals, and even with the best of care, they occasionally get damaged or lost in the mail. Why would anyone choose to add to that risk by going off into the "do your own thing" world, instead of following what has proven over time to be the best procedures??

I completely agree that a new envelope should be used each time. I haven't done a lot of micro postals, but in one of the rings I was part of, I noticed that some senders used envelopes that opened and sealed on the short end instead of the long side. These seemed to be a lot more secure than a standard #10 envelope. I think they are called policy envelopes.

I work with a contracted courier thru usps and they are supposed to pick up on Saturdays. Ours pick up around 6pm. I believe there is a way to find out if they reported picking up from your PO or not. If they reported they did, they are just being VERY lazy and trying to get off work early. Amazon did that to us last year and it was a big deal ☆

Hi postal people,

when carving a stamp with different colors, do you normally carve to add the different color inks, or do you carve to color it in after?

I notice with micro-postals, when there are different colors to ink up with markers, the impression never comes out that great. I think its because the stamp is 'flimsy'.

I personally carve then color it in to get the full affect of the stamp, but wonder do people even bother coloring it when they get the stamp...lol.

What do people prefer? Would you rather be able to just ink up the stamp in different colors and hope for the best, or just color it in yourself with your markers?

I prefer a stamp that I can color in, and hopefully, the carver has colored it in their folder, so I can see how they intended it to be. Yes, I do color them in.
I agree that the flimsy-ness tends to make them difficult to stamp anyway, much less, having to color the stamp itself first. Hard to get a decent result that way.

I always wonder this when making stamps as well. Not even specifically for postals, just in general. Sometimes I can't figure out if I'm just carving outlines like a coloring book or if I should be carving bolder shapes to be inked separately. I guess there is no wrong or right way.

I will say, for postals I have had better luck being able to just ink the whole thing one color to get a decent impression vs. coloring individual areas on the stamp. Although, I find that I have to make multiple stamping attempts in order to get a solid nonsmudged image for all micro postals... so it could just be my poor stamping skills lol

lol...im the same way, don't feel bad. I started to stamp on stickers so I dont keep ruining my 'postal page' in my log book.

thats how I feel also.

When I use markers directly onto a stamp, it seems like the ink dries too quickly in some areas. Someone at a gathering event coached me. She said to breathe on the ink to kind of rehydrate it before stamping it onto my page. That really helps to get a better image. Carefully clean the stamp after utilizing this technique 😅

Now, in my opinion, I prefer an image that is designed like a coloring page with outlines, as opposed to the design that is to be colored with markers instead. I too enjoy copying a color scheme that is shown in the folio. Some of my postal pages are quite colorful (ie that recent bird themed tracker!)

Either way, I enjoy seeing everyone's ideas come to life and receiving Happy Mail. Carving decisions are interesting too. We're all learning together! So I'm going to keep practicing 🥸

I was told about that to. i try to do the color scheme that is in the folio also. sometimes I dont have a specific color and try to get something close to it, but it never comes out as nice as the one in the folio....lol.

"Huffing"! At least, that is what we used to call it.
I actually posted a story about this, waaaay back in 2008, on my "Boxers n Briefs" blog (yes, I had a blog... yes, it was full of bad jokes).

So, without further ado, here is my Huffing Story from 2008... it is the reason why I never advocate cleaning stamps after stamping.

A few months ago, while Ryan was somewhere in the wilds of Florida, I took my daughter on a trip to San Luis Obispo, CA, for one of her Acro-Gymnastics competitions. For those of you who don't know it, SLO is the home stomping-grounds for our very own Green Tortuga. Now, I had never gotten a GT box, so I was really excited about this trip.

As it turned out (and as I shouldn't be surprised), I had very little time to myself to "escape" from the rigours of a competition weekend. I got about an hour the first day to get some wonderful boxes at a park that happened to be right near the hotel, and I was able to snag my first Amanda box. But no GT boxes. Drats!

As the weekend wore on, I was eventually resigned to the prospect of not achieving the GT goal. But fortune smiled on me, or at least stopped pummeling me with a blunt instrument, on Sunday afternoon. There was a break in the competition, and I decided to head out and get some Subway sandwiches for lunch, instead of the methane-burgers they were serving at the meet (notice how that isn't spelled "meat"). I hopped in my car, and headed down the road. As I was driving around SLO, getting wonderfully lost, I suddenly spied an establishment whose name was strangely familiar: "Leon's Used Books". HEY!!! There was a GT box in that place!! I parked as soon as I could, and as I was getting out of the car, it dawned on me that I didn't have ANY of my Letterboxing stuff with me! No sig stamp, no inkpads, and not even any clues. NOOOOO!!!!

Well, by this time I was determined. I recalled this box was "special" in that it didn't have a logbook - it was simply a stamp-on-a-magnet - so the lack of sig-stamp was not an issue. The lack of an inkpad, and especially the lack of the clue, however, were a little more worrisome. I searched the dark recesses of my memory (to be honest, that's pretty much all I have is dark recesses), and dredged up what few things I remembered reading about this box. It was around the corner from some topic-or-other that was vaguely intriguing to me... it was near the bottom shelf, but not the VERY bottom shelf... and it was at either the far right or far left of the shelf. I figured "how hard could it be?"... until I stepped inside. The front of the store looked like it was nothing more than a hole in the wall, but stepping inside was like the scene in "The Wizard of Oz" where Dorothy first steps into Munchkinland... the place suddenly loomed larger (and deeper) than it seemed possible from the outside.

Mildly daunted, I wandered through the stacks and shelves, looking for anything that seemed "vaguely intriguing" and had a metal shelf. Finally, while being vaguely intrigued by Photography, and running my fingers nonchalantly under a shelf, I discovered "that which I seeked." Woohoo!!! I found a GT box!

Uhhhh... well, I had the stamp. But no logbook. And no ink. Now what? No way I was giving up at this point. I searched through my pockets, to see what I had... and found my checkbook. Heck, it's paper, right? I looked closely at the stamp and noticed... it seemed to have some residue ink on it from previous stampers. I snuck back into one of the side-rooms in the bookstore, made sure I was unnoticed, and HUFFED like a madman on the stamp (I knew I would only get one shot at this), then quickly stamped it onto the back of a blank check. Ha!! I GOT it! I now have a voided check with a faint but definite impression of Green Tortuga's Bookstore stamp displayed proudly in my logbook. Persistence pays!

Great story!

I have huffed a stamp a few times. I got the image, however faint.

I prefer traditional Postals over MicroPostals. Maybe when posting a micro state that in the title? Or MPLB? Or a separate category?

I completely agree with both the labeling and the addition of a Micro attribute (like the "heavy" attribute). LTCs have 3 size attributes.

There are many new to the hobby and all they are familiar with is the Micro variety. Micros have become so popular that they are now considered to be the default. I try to add Micro to my box titles, but just today I listed one without it. Thanks to your comment I have edited the title.

I fixed mine.
Usually I've seen trackers say in the full description what size they are, but I can certainly see why that is not the ideal way to find out.

I hope more standard size postals come around for you to participate!

I feel maybe people lean more towards micros because full thickness pink stuff stamps can be a bit more expensive to mail and time consuming due to going into the post office to mail (unless there is a way to not have to go in and talk to a clerk to get them mailed idk)

Yes, they have gotten quite a bit more expensive, but I rarely had to go inside the post office to mail a standard sized postal. I weighed mine at home on a kitchen scale, and also printed the label at home, using PayPal. The cost was cheaper than at the post office, and I also got a USPS tracking number. I still use PayPal whenever I have to mail any packages out.

10 years ago, the average bubble mailer was under $2 to mail. I could stick stamps on it and drop it in the "Blue Box". Now they are $5+ to mail, different depending on distance, and all of the corner boxes have a metal plate welded over the mail slot with a half inch opening. Nothing but normal letters can go in them, you must bring all bubble envelopes to the desk inside a post office.

Before I could check the mail, stamp in, and drop it in the box an hour later or on my way to work the next day. Now I would have to waste time standing in line, probably on a Saturday morning because that's my only free day during "business hours". So instead of a 1-day turnaround it would be up to 6 days before I can mail it! (If I don't miss a weekend and have to potentially hold it for 10+ days)

Edit: Back then I worked at a small business and had them delivered to work. I could actually stamp in at work and mail them back out the same day, during lunch. Now I travel all day (often away from home 8am to 7pm) so I would be limited to stamping in either late at night or on weekends.

Between the extra cost and time involved I have completely lost interest in receiving "Normal Postals"! I might send my old ones out again.... but my trust in the USPS with lost packages is another story LOL

I find carving a tiny thin stamp and then sticking it in a folio to see if I got it under a ounce as a fun challenge.
Like today, I finished carving a really tiny lettering stamp (I'm not the best at tiny) for a MicroPLB tracker. However I went a little heavy on the logbook and I'll have to add extra ounce stamps to my postal. Oops. Haha.
I love doing both. And I also agree it's important to list it properly weither it's heavy or a tiny MicroPLB.

I have 3 post offices about equal distance from my home. They all have big boxes inside the lobby for packages, and my favorite one also has little "drawer" doors in the wall for first class mail (postals can easily fit in there). So, I can by-pass the counter line. Before I retired, I also mailed from work.

We usually drive past the favorite post office twice a week, so I can do quick turn-arounds on the postals I receive. Our mailman will pick up out-going mail from our mailbox, so sometimes I use that option.

When I do send out normal postals now, I usually send out more than one stamp, and the listing includes the weight, so people who sign up can calculate how much it's going to cost them. Getting 2-3 stamps for $5-$7 is still within my budget, but not for one, and definitely, a Ring is something I cannot justify.