[Boatanchors] Medial Mail

[mac]

Bill, et-al,

Interesting and makes sense but the manager's statement may or may not  
reflect official USPO policy. I regularly mail out DVDs in the  
standard DVD/CD cardboard mailers but every time it's a crapshoot as  
to whether it's a small package, letter, oversize letter or something  
else.  The definition varies PO to PO and window to window within  
POs.  I've been asked "what did you pay last time?" by some clerks,  
but whatever I had been told before by somebody else is usually  
dismissed out of hand.  Don't know if going back to USPO headquarters  
for an authoritative judgement would do any good or not.  :^(

Dennis D.  W7QHO
Glendale, CA

******************
On Jul 16, 2011, at 10:31 AM, Bill Cotter wrote:

> I just returned from our local Post Office. The manager stated that
> "The intent of the Media Mail restriction on advertisements refers
> strictly to the bulk shipping of flyers, handbills, printed
> advertisements, catalogs, graphic art advertising and other
> print-shop jobs." In other words, media to be used to promote
> selling (present tense).
>
> He also said "Magazines, manuals, CD's, DVD's, publications,
> journals, digests, etc are considered books or bound materials, and
> are shippable as media mail." He went on to say ".....The fact that
> a historical document contains an advertisement does not make it
> the dominant characteristic of the material......" It is a
> magazine, not a catalog.
>
> He suggested printing on the package "Media Mail - Bound matter."
>
> With respect to Pete's cry of "lying", it is clearly wrong to call
> a radio in a box "media mail", and truthful to call a bunch of QSTs
> a "books or bound matter."
>
> 73 Bill N4LG