PNC’s - There’s still hope!
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Plate Number Coil (PNC) collectors have been up in arms over a recent decision by USPS to limit PNC’s to just one number for all printings. This decision would effectively destroy the entire hobby of PNC collecting. But…there is still hope. Bob Rabinowitz and several others have spearheaded a campaign to try and save the PNC collecting hobby. Here is a letter sent to the USStamps Yahoo group this morning by Bob (this is reposted with his permission):
There is good reason to believe that the USPS will return to using new plate numbers each time a cylinder is replaced. This is the status.Soon after the problem arose, I contacted Wade Saadi, a life member of PNC3 and a major player in U.S philately. He is the president of the U.S. Classic Society as well as the Collectors Club of New York (CCNY) and a current candidate for the APS Board of Vice Presidents. In addition, he is heading up the International Philatelic Show (like the recent Washington, DC Show and Exhibition) that is scheduled for 2016. And Saadi and David Failor, the USPS’s “stamp czar” are on a first name basis.
A letter was assembled by Saadi explaining the effect that limiting the plate numbers to all 1s would have on collectors as well as an estimate of its impact on the USPS’s bottom line. In addition the proposal was made that the printers would keep no records of impression data to thus eliminate the continuum of Freedom of information Requests that the USPS has been receiving causing them and the printers a great deal of time and frustration.
Besides Saadi, signers of the letter were Janet Klug, the current American Philatelic Society president and Roger Brody, chairman of the United States Stamp Society (formerly the BIA). All three know David Failor personally. The letters asked for a four way telephone conversation so the matter could be discussed “man to man”. Failor was very receptive and set of time, Tuesday, January 30, at 10:00 AM and arranged for the four-way hook up.
The conversation went very well and Failor was very receptive to returning to the old format. The key here for the USPS is the eliminating of the record keeping of plate/cylinder impressions. Saadi, Klug, and Brody believed that Failor understood that the return to the old system was a win-win situation. And while he didn’t commit to the return yet, he told them that it would get serious consideration. A key here was a meeting with the printers that was planned during the next several weeks at which they would have inputs regarding the proposal.
Saadi came away from the meeting with high marks for David Failor and the feeling that hopefully that we again will see new numbers with new plates/cylinders.
Bob Rabinowitz
For more information on PNC collecting, and more background on this story, see the USStamps Yahoo Group and the PNC3 website.
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