Postage Experiment Faces Cancellation

Stamps.com chief executive Ken McBride thought family photos would be used to personalize postage stamps. (Matt Sayles -- AP)

The U.S. Postal Service would not be the first to have a photo stamp program, if it allows PhotoStamps to continue. A few countries, including Canada, Ireland and Switzerland, have similar programs, according to McKiernan.

In an electronically connected world where people are moving toward e-mail and online bill payments, anything that drums up interest in old-fashioned "snail mail" could be taken as good news. A presidential commission's report last year forecast that the volume of mail the U.S. Postal Service handles every year will fall from 202.2 billion pieces in 2003 to 181.7 billion by 2017.

Those who follow the movements of the U.S. Postal Service said they don't know whether the PhotoStamps will be approved or not, but some weighed in, in favor of the stamps.

"I hope they don't chicken out because of the embarrassing stamps that were created by the Smoking Gun," said Michael Schreiber, editor of Linn's Stamp News. "I think it would be foolish for them not to continue this. These stamps do nothing but encourage people to use first-class mail."

Josh Rubin, a designer in New York, purchased PhotoStamps with pictures of his two Sealyham terriers, Otis and Logan. Rubin said he liked the stamps, but that they are -- at a price of 20 stamps for $16.99 -- probably too expensive for regular use.

"I think it's a great idea for special occasions, but it's about a dollar a stamp, so it's not for every day," he said.

Collectors have mixed opinions on the stamps, but some think any attention is good attention. "Stamp collectors are very divided about it," said Robert Lamb, executive director of the American Philatelic Society. "Some think it undermines the dignity of the hobby. We believe that, on balance, it's going to be beneficial to the hobby because it's going to build people's interest in stamps."

As for the Smoking Gun, a site that normally specializes in getting its hands on more titillating documents such as celebrity mug shots, editor William Bastone thinks the program may have a future.

"By all accounts, it seems the PhotoStamps idea has been popular with consumers," he said in an e-mail yesterday afternoon. "We trust that if the USPS allows it to continue, Stamps.com will make sure their screening process is a bit more robust."

Bastone said the stamps his outfit ordered are now filed away with all the other odd documents and photos that his Web site has amassed over the years, where they will remain, "unless, of course, the phone bill is due and we don't have a regular stamp handy."