Cashing in?

I tried something different on this batch of international mailings.

It's tough sometimes to get international postage. Paying face value for the appropriate stamps is almost impossible since someone somewhere along the line has to eat the shipping costs to get the stamps from their original country. If I buy direct from Canada Post, South African Post Office, Correo Argentina, Royal Mail in the UK, Post NL in the Netherlands, BH Pošta in Bosnia, Pošta PBS in Slovenia, Croatia's Hrvatska Pošta, or ЈП Пошта Србије in Serbia, I'm not only paying face value for the stamp, but also the cost to ship that stamp over here, essentially paying double. Even if I buy from a stamp dealer who buys in bulk, it'll still be slightly higher to disperse shipping costs and likely have a premium added on so that they get their profit.

So, why not cut out the middle man?

This time when I sent to Dale Mitchell in Canada, Dali in Bosnia, and Bobo Lucic in Slovenia, I just slipped in some cash to cover the postage. Around $2 in USD should cover a stamp from any of these. Slovenia's postage costs €1.17, about $1.31. A few years ago, Bosnia's was 2.15 BAM, about $1.23. Canada's is currently C$1.33, approximately US$1.02.

I plan to do the same tomorrow with Damir Haramina, Jan Goossens, Omar Gomez, and Pasquale Deluca; then Mark Karpun once I get a couple more singles (pro tip: don't send coins), and once Goossens returns Carl Valentine.  I know another collector had success just including cash for postage from Goossens.

We'll see how it goes. Trial and error is about all you can really do in this hobby sometimes.