On Sun, 11 Jul 2004 22:49:18 -0500, Tim McNamara
<
[email protected]> wrote:
>Mark Hickey <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> Tim McNamara <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>"Stefan Pavlik" <[email protected]> writes:
>>>
>>>> In doing so, the USPS can and has kept stamp prices reasonably low
>>>
>>>I'm always amazed to send letters to Europeans for under $1 and get
>>>replies which may cost several times as much to send from Europe to
>>>the US. I sent a letter to Ireland a few years ago, cost me US$.40
>>>and the return from Ireland cost nearly US$5.00! Sending that
>>>letter to Ireland now would cost more, but still probably a fraction
>>>of what it would cost someone in Europe to send one to me.
>>
>> Then again, when I lived in China it cost LESS to send a letter from
>> Beijing to the US than from the US to the US (around 20 cents vx. 33
>> cents IIRC). I never figured that one out. I suppose to the US
>> postal system the mail coming in from China looked like the
>> pre-sorted kind of "cut-rate commercial" junk mail that costs little
>> to send, too (only on a much larger scale).
>
>That brings up a question I have never thought of. Presumably, I pay
>USPS for the stamp and then once it gets to Ireland or France or Italy
>or wherever, USPS is paying that country's postal service to actually
>deliver the letter. How does that work? And how does it work in
>reverse? I'm assuming that Mr. Armstrong and Co. are not out dropping
>off letters and parcels on their training rides (contrary to the ads
>on TV today).
Dear Tim,
Basically, international postal treaties. You pay one
government postal monopoly whatever rates it's negotiated
with another government postal monopoly. That is, whatever
the sending country likes to charge, plus whatever the
receiving country likes to charge.
In addition to whatever facilities they find convenient to
run themselves, each country may hire private shipping space
on planes and boats as needed. If you go through a private
carrier, rather than the government, all bets are off. They
may be cheaper, more expensive, faster, slower, safer, or
less reliable, depending on what countries are involved.
In 1986, my savings and loan in Colorado repeatedly sent
cashier's checks to me in the Caribbean. The dumb bastards
kept putting 22-cent stamps on the envelopes, which were
cheerfully returned from Miami for insufficient postage--the
letters could cross the U.S., but the point where they would
have been handed over by treaty was in Florida, so that was
where they were rejected. This, too, will vary according to
time and place.
After Anthony Trollope got up at 5am and wrote his usual
three hours in the morning on dozens of three-volume
Victorian novels ("The Way We Live Now" might be a good
start, rather more lurid than most), he went to work at the
British Post Office for a full day's work. When not running
around the U.K. to straighten out postal matters, he
travelled to places like Egypt to work out the details of
treaties to get letters from London to Cairo.
Carl Fogel
