[meteorite-list] OT: USPS price increase: international = crazy increase!

From: Count Deiro <countdeiro_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:35:29 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
Message-ID: <106121.1359398129414.JavaMail.root_at_wamui-junio.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

Hi Martin, Adam and All,

I'm 75 and I remember my first paying job, after the $83.00 a month the regular Army paid me in 1955, was $1.35 an hour installing the new roof top aluminum TV antennas. Telephone switch boards, with live operators, were still in use with as many a six subscribers on one line. Some parts of Las Vegas went to a two letter prefix followed by four numbers in 1959. DUdley and EVergreen were the first. I had a cradle, rotary dial, phone till the 1960's.

All long distance calls were placed through a live operator who had to talk to a live operator on the other end. There were no international calls for private citizens, everything was done by telegraph. A telegram was still the fastest and surest way to send a message, and they were delivered by hand until the late 1950's. Nearly 90% of Nevada had no telephone service except for a few local switchboards until 1960. A lot of small towns in Central Nevada were sorry to see the PONY EXPRESS shut down :0)

In 1968, I had to communicate with workers in the field and couldn't afford a legal two way radio system, and the components were huge! So, I rigged a 2000 watt bi-linear amplifier to a 16 channel 5 watt Midland CB radio and 100' tall antenna. All illegal as hell, and when I transmitted, anyone listening to one of Las Vegas' three TV channels got stepped on. The Gehimestaatspolezei raided me one AM and convinced me to get an Amateur radio license and dismantle the rig.

My first Motorola portable phone weighed eight pounds, had a shoulder strap, and was just to big to lug around, so up until the middle 1980's, I rented a repeater on a mountain overlooking the valley and used a UHF base station and hand helds.

Now, I can bounce live feeds worldwide off the Moon, or any number of satellites...who would have thunk?

On subject, stamps in 1962 were 1 cent for post cards and 3 cents for letters...five cents for Airmail.

Regards,

Count Deiro
IMCA 3536



      

-----Original Message-----
>From: Galactic Stone & Ironworks <meteoritemike at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jan 28, 2013 9:35 AM
>To: Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de>
>Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] OT: USPS price increase: international = crazy increase!
>
>Hi Martin and List,
>
>Oh I do remember the good old days. When important people carried
>beepers and they were still dime payphones on every corner. I could
>fuel my gashog Camaro at 83 cents a gallon and a pack of Marlboros was
>$1.75. A movie ticket was $3. Minimum wage was $3.35 an hour at my
>first job. The internet didn't yet exist and I downloaded software
>from dial-up BBS's at 300 baud. It would take all night, sometimes
>8-10 hours, just to download a game that took up two floppy disks.
>One hiccup of line noise and the whole thing had to be scrapped and
>re-downloaded. Rotary phone in the kitchen that had a long coiled
>cord that could be stretched halfway across the house and through two
>doorways was usually my "internet connection". The handset would be
>unplugged and the cord plugged into the modem.
>
>How many people remember the old IRC's? International Reply Coupons.
>These were once standard fare when making small purchases from
>overseas vendors - typically used when requesting a catalog to be
>mailed out.
>
>An ever-dwindling number of dealers still use snail mail to send out
>offerings, but it's a practice that is dying out. I still appreciate
>it though and love receiving them.
>
>And yes, yes, and yes - I want one of those Meteorite Super Trump card
>decks before they are all gone. Send me a PayPal invoice. :)
>
>Now, if this was 1986, I'd press "Send" and this email would take
>about 10 minutes to send, line by line. LOL. And it wasn't called
>"email" then, it was simply a message.
>
>Best regards,
>
>MikeG
>
>--
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>Web - http://www.galactic-stone.com
>Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/galacticstone
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>-------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>On 1/28/13, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:
>> But, Mike, other things became remarkably cheap.
>>
>> Imagine, you'd have to do all your e-mail traffic in form of paper letters,
>> and if it's urgent to pay a.. a... a "telegram". full stop.
>> Or to print your assortment lists and to send them by mail out.
>> Oops sorry, to type them first by typewriter and to "hectograph" them
>> (cool,
>> my English dictionary hasn't that word anymore).
>> Huh, we had then even extra-thin paper for airmail-letters.
>>
>> ...like it was common practice still far into the 1990s.
>>
>> If I would do so, I easily would pay 15-20k$ a year only for buying stamps!
>>
>> Or, hihihi, do you remember the first cellular phones?
>> These where you had still to carry a suitcase under the other arm?
>> And where the people and we laughed so much about the cockalorums, when
>> they
>> ostentatiously screamed on the street in the handset: I'm just this moment
>> walking on that and that road..
>>
>> Oops. Have to explain to the kiddies, why that was so funny:
>> At those times then, the phone was at home. If you called somebody and a
>> person was not answering, you knew that that person was not at home. And if
>> he answered, you hadn't to ask, where he is and what he's doing, because
>> you
>> knew, that he's home and is speaking on the phone. Hence it was a
>> zero-information.
>> And dear children, so it is still today! It makes no sense to call or to
>> send an SMS to ask, where the other would be at the moment or to report
>> where you are.
>> Because if you're waiting for someone, it doesn't help you to know, whether
>> he's in the supermarket, on a baseball field or on the road,
>> Becauuuuuuuuuuse he comes, when he comes. All other information is
>> irrelevant.
>>
>> Would be interesting to know, with how many billions the private
>> consumption
>> could be risen,
>> if people would stop sending these empty information, where they are at the
>> moment and what they are doing at the moment, wouldn't it?
>>
>> Alas,
>> Children, we survived these old times, without problems.
>> On contrary, it wasn't so stressing and stroboscopic like today.
>>
>> Today we suffered horrible deformations.
>> Look at me, I get already impatient, because I'm waiting for Mike's
>> decision
>> for 12 hours only, although he is at the moment 10,000 miles away from me,
>> and where we would have sent then letters forth and back for the same
>> thing,
>> which would have taken easily 3 weeks.
>>
>> Skol
>> Martin
>>
>> PS: Iiiieeek! German collectors have not only to pay import-VAT on the
>> meteorites sent fom non-EU, but also on the postage! That's mean, cause in
>> Germany buying stamps is VAT-free.
>> Always those communists....
>>
>> (PPS: To Adam I say, make money not war, then it works also with the
>> states-budget again ;-)
>>
>> PPS: By the way, I'm sitting at the moment in front of my computer and I'm
>> typing this posting... ;-)
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
>> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
>> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von
>> Galactic
>> Stone & Ironworks
>> Gesendet: Montag, 28. Januar 2013 16:12
>> An: Adam Hupe
>> Cc: Adam
>> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] OT: USPS price increase: international =
>> crazy
>> increase!
>>
>> My local clerk gave me a heads-up about this hike last week. It still
>> sucks
>> though. Gripe +1.
>>
>> This is just another cost that dealers will have to pass along to
>> collectors.
>>
>> A while back, I stopped using boxes to ship Riker displays. Now I wrap
>> them
>> up in a double-layer of padding and put them into a bubble-mailer. This
>> saves several ounces on weight and a few dollars on postage. There is a
>> higher risk of breakage now, but thankfully none have been broken so far.
>> I'll replace the occasional damaged one when the situation arises, so it's
>> worth it to keep the overall costs down a bit.
>>
>> The international increase is the worst part. I ship a lot of First Class
>> International packages to places like Canada and the UK. Some of these
>> could be shipped for $4 or less. Heck, a small bubble mailer to Canada
>> often cost under $3 and was cheaper than sending the same package to Hawaii
>> or Alaska. I guess that has changed now. It's bad enough the customs
>> short
>> form now requires 10 minutes of standing in line for each package, and now
>> this.
>>
>> Like Adam said - I recall the early days of Flat Rate shipping (not that
>> long ago actually), and while the cost has gone up, the amount or quality
>> of
>> service paid for has not. It's the same as most consumer goods or services
>> over the last decade - less for more.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> MikeG
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>> Web - http://www.galactic-stone.com
>> Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/galacticstone
>> Twitter - http://twitter.com/GalacticStone Pinterest -
>> http://pinterest.com/galacticstone
>> RSS - http://www.galactic-stone.com/rss/126516
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> On 1/28/13, Adam Hupe <raremeteorites at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> This is typical of USPS and Government in general. Give absolutely no
>>> warning of impending price or tax increases and make decisions at the
>>> last
>>> possible second. There are going to be a lot of shocked taxpayers once
>> they
>>> realize all of the hidden tax increases in the Affordable Health Care
>>> Act.
>>> As far as shipping goes, USPS is famous for surprise increases. I
>> remember
>>> 8 years ago when a small flat rate Priority Mail box cost only $2.80. It
>> is
>>> now exactly double at $5.60.
>>>
>>> How many people's salaries have doubled in the last 8 years? The
>> government
>>> should learn to manage our money better instead of spending it like a
>>> drunken gambler. At least the gambler is spending his own money. Most
>> of
>>> us are forced to live within our means!
>>>
>>> I can hear the complaining now from eBay buyers about the new shipping
>> price
>>> hike. We go through this once or twice a year.
>>>
>>> Happy Shipping,
>>>
>>> Adam
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Yinan Wang <veomega at gmail.com>
>>> To: METEORITE LIST <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>>> Cc:
>>> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 12:15 AM
>>> Subject: [meteorite-list] OT: USPS price increase: international = crazy
>>> increase!
>>>
>>> Hi List,
>>>
>>> This is more of a "OMG, did you see the prices" message, although it
>>> is a subject that affects both meteorite sellers and buyers.
>>>
>>> For those not aware, the USPS raised it's prices on Sunday, while
>>> domestically it didn't change by much, internationally it's an insane
>>> price increase:
>>>
>>> https://www.usps.com/business/prices.htm
>>>
>>> So small flat rate priority international went from $16.95 to $23.95
>>> (a 40% increase!). To Canada small flat rate went from $12.95 to
>>> $19.95 (over 50%!).
>>>
>>> Even first class international starting price is now $6.55 and for
>>> some places seem to have gone up 125%!
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, there's not much anyone can do, alternatives are few
>>> and still fairly costly. Although, anyone with affordable shipping
>>> suggestions, feel free to chime in.
>>>
>>> -Yinan Wang
>>> ______________________________________________
>>>
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>> ______________________________________________
>>
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Received on Mon 28 Jan 2013 01:35:29 PM PST