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Comment by wileydragonfly | Hacker News Reader

For a few years, your money was better spent investing in Forever stamps vs the stock market..

This was more or less the plan behind the original Ponzi scheme. The problem is that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to convert stamps back to cash at anything close to face value.

fun fact. in federal prisons (and some portion of state prisons), books of stamps are essentially $5 bills. It's common to see people with huge wads of stamps in their pockets much like you would with cash. a few years ago, it became much more difficult to convert stamps back to cash, so a few companies popped up that would accept stamps in the mail for some value on the dollar and books of stamps are the currency of (most) US prisons to this day.

The jails and prisons are all shifting to a system where they will frank your mail with the correct postage and take it off your commissary to avoid people owning stamps.

I once sued because the jail was selling Forever stamps at 49c but Congress had reduced the price to 47c. The government's argument was that they had purchased 10,000 of them at 49c, so selling them at 49c was legal as they weren't "ripping anyone off." The appellate courts did not agree with that argument.

Also, funny thing in jails, the sticky leftover gutter parts of the stamp books had value because they could be used to repair torn things like books, photos and magazines.

In the '90s I corresponded with a prisoner whose facility did not allow them to have stamps; they could only send usps envelopes with the postage preprinted directly on the envelope.

Oh, I thought they were using cans of mackerel!

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