[Milsurplus] Media Mail again!

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

I think that I just found the Catch 22 exception allowing Delivery 
Confirmation on mailings less than 3/4" thick.  A Flat becomes a Parcel if you pay 
the Parcel postage rate.  This is actually a change from the last time that I 
went through this section of the DMM.  The only other requirement is that 
the mailing lable be large enough to print the bar code in addition to the 
indicia and both addresses.  It now occurs to me that the last time I saw the 
1x4 test board at my Post Office, there was no distinction in rates between 
letters, flats and parcels being shipped as First Class Mail.  I think this 
change came in two years ago, but it could have been three.  The DMM is like 
Obama's medical bill.  No sane human could sit and read the whole thing at 
one sitting.

I also was amused to note that a flat can become a Parcel (requiring the 
Parcel postage rate) if you can place both ends on 1" spacers, deflect the 
center 1", and damage it.  :-)

And interested to note that of the seven or eight ZIP's in the Pacific 
excluded from Delivery Confirmation (and some other restrictions), I've set foot 
on at least five.  And that two or three are not pronounced the way that 
USPS spells them.

In a message dated 2011-07-20 08:54:13 AM Central Daylight Time, 
sdaitch at kuw.ibb.gov writes: 
> Bob,
> 
> I never realized there was a thickness requirement on delivery 
> confirmation, but sure enough,
> it certainly is.
> 
> http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/503.htm#1063871
> 
> See 10.2
> 
> I am wondering if the thickness requirement is to keep letter mail 
> mailers from using
> Delivery Confirmation as a cheap way to get around the most costly 
> Certified Mail
> charges?
> 
> It looks like the 3/4-inch rule still exists, per the Domestic Mail 
> Manual, but it appears
> there is a workaround which allows thinner packages.  See section 
> 10.2.2.c.
> 
> 73
> Sheldon
> WA4MZZ
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/19/2011 7:53 AM, WA5CAB at cs.com wrote:
> >Delivery Confirmation is another one of those gray areas in the minds of
> >the million USPS employees.  The book says that to put it on First Class 
> Mail
> >the "mail piece" must be in a "rigid container" at least 3/4" thick.  My
> >Post Office used to inforce the rule with a piece of (I think) 1 by 4 
> with a
> >3/4" by about 15" slot cut in it.  If they could pull you package through 
> the
> >slot, it didn't get DelCnfm.  But I routinely receive mail in padded
> >envelopes less than half an inch thick with the bar code printed on them. 
>  Since we
> >started printing our own postage, we just ignore the rule if we want to 
> use
> >it.  Maybe in ten or fifteen years, they'll get around to revising the
> >book.
> >
> >In a message dated 2011-07-18 23:35:21 PM Central Daylight Time,
> >kargo_cult at msn.com writes:
> >    
> 

Robert & Susan Downs - Houston
wa5cab dot com (Web Store)
MVPA 9480