In February 2013, the U.S. Postal Service proposed a plan to suspend mail delivery on Saturdays. After resistance from magazines, newspapers, and direct mail industries, the plan was revoked.

Ever since The Saturday Evening Post‘s first issue in 1821, we have been associated with Saturday delivery. In our early years, the issues were posted so that, at least in the Philadelphia area, they arrived on Saturday—specifically, with the second mail delivery of the day. Yes, the postal department made two deliveries of mail every day until 1950. However, it didn’t start delivering mail to homes until 1863. Prior to then, if you wanted your Post on a Saturday evening, you walked down to the post office and got it yourself. And if you craved the latest news, you might start reading your copy right where you stood, just as you might stop suddenly today to read the headlines on your smartphone.

We must make an important admission here: from the 1930s onward, the Post usually didn’t arrive on Saturday, but on Wednesday.

(Incidentally, the Postal Service proposed dropping Saturday delivery only after we redesigned our logo to emphasize “POST” and put “Saturday Evening” in smaller type.)

The Postal Service expects the suspension of Saturday deliveries will save it a badly needed $2 billion a year. Looking back through our archive, we found that deficits have been a chronic problem with the Postal Service—at least for the 20th century. Somehow, the postage rates never seemed high enough to cover operating costs, which is why the price of stamps rose steadily from 2 cents an ounce to 46 cents—half of that increase occurring just since 1985.

As far back as 1910, President Taft announced the post office department faced a deficit of $17.5 million ($4.4 billion in 2013 dollar.) This shortfall, according to a 1910 Post article, was caused by two big money-losers. The first was rural free delivery: the department began delivering mail to rural households in 1896, which enabled it to close post offices. But after 14 years, the service was still operating at a loss.

The second source of loss was second-class mail: magazines and newspapers. Even in 1899, periodicals were causing the mail to operate in the red.

In an 1899 article, the Postmaster General, Charles Emory Smith, told Post readers about “The Greatest Post Office In The World.” He proudly listed all the innovative services his department provided, including postal money orders, registered letters, and special delivery. He was particularly proud of the mail cars on the railroads, which were “really working post offices, rushing along at lightning speed, whizzing through towns, swirling around curves, and rumbling over bridges.” Inside the cars, postal clerks “with prodigious memories of lives, offices, stations, routes and timetables” sorted and packaged an average of 1.5 million pieces a mail each year.

But for all its efficiencies and dedication, said Smith, the post office lost $11 million in 1896 because it didn’t charge enough for second-class mail. His department could be profitable if it didn’t have to include magazines and newspapers. But Smith justified the losses because periodicals were then considered “educational.”

The real problem, he added, was the immense size of the country. “Uncle Sam carries letters for 2 cents over an area larger than all Europe. … Considering the immensity of the amount of mail carried, the magnificence of the distances, and the comparative smallness of the force, the showing of the Postal Service of America is marvelous.”

Today’s Postal Service, for all its modernization, still has a lot of territory to cover. No software on earth can shorten the distance a letter or magazine must travel between New York City and Los Angeles. The current price of a stamp—46 cents—is still cheap when you consider it will get your document to its destination anywhere within a space of 3.8 million square miles.

No More Saturday Mail? The Saturday Evening Post

They sat down at the table, pulled out a stack of old Fleishmann’s margarine tubs (carefully washed and saved), placed some paper towels beside them, and added a stack of stamped envelopes from the previous weeks’ mail.

“She’d put water in the tubs, and we’d soak the stamps off three or four envelopes at a time,” Amanda remembers. “We laid them on the paper towels to dry and pasted them in a book.” The two sat side by side in the kitchen organizing stamps—and Amanda discovered a passion that inspires the line, color, and feeling of the work she creates today as a professional artist.

Bathtubs and Nickels

Around 97 percent of those who collect stamps today began, like Amanda, somewhere between the ages of 7 and 14, according to a survey by the American Philatelic Society, says Wade Saadi, president of the group. But what first ignites the passion for stamps and sends collectors hurtling through life on a hunt for colored bits of paper is a happy mystery—as is the “why.”

Some experts suggest that people collect simply to immerse themselves in the beauty of stamps, while others collect to expand social networks and make friends. Others seem to collect because, in the middle of a stressful life in a chaotic world, it gives them a sense that at least one part of their lives is organized and under control. Still, others collect for a sense of accomplishment, as an investment, or as a way to connect with history.

In Amanda’s case, it was the visual appeal of the stamps that first caught her attention as she worked with her great-grandmother. But it wasn’t until Amanda had soaked the stamps off 3,000 envelopes in the family bathtub one day that her family realized how serious she was. That little incident led her father to take her to a meeting of the Southern Illinois Stamp Club. Amanda was in heaven. She saw stamps featuring images by Degas, Renoir, Picasso, and other great artists. “I suddenly realized I was in a whole new world,” she says.

She began attending meetings of a local club and getting to know experienced collectors. “Our club had some magnificent characters in it,” says Amanda. “They were always educating me—whether it was about stamp facts or the history represented on the stamps. And they had boxes, called ‘nickel boxes.’ I could sit there at meetings with them, dig through their boxes, and buy a stamp for a nickel!” She laughs. “It was a fabulous way to build a collection, and a fabulous way to build relationships.”

Lick ’Em and Stick ’Em!

Do you have an interesting collection you’d like to share with our readers? Send your stories to letters@saturdayeveningpost.com.
Want to give stamp collecting a whirl or get back into it?

• Check out the new stamps from the U.S. Postal Service at your local post office or online at shop.usps.com. There, you’ll also find practical answers to most questions—including how to tell what a stamp is worth.

• Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum at postalmuseum.si.edu offers all you need to get started, including a video on the history of stamps.

• Visit the American Philatelic Society Web site at stamps.org for clubs and shows across the nation.

Stamp Acts The Saturday Evening Post