U.S. Postal Service: Do I legally have to have a mailbox?
Nope. You do not legally need a mailbox. Any mail that you would receive after you remove your mailbox would be marked “NMR”. That stands for “No Mail Receptacle”. It would automatically be returned back to the sender. If you do this, put a sign up indicating that you no longer have a mailbox for USPS to deliver. We will handle the rest.A word of caution: IF you ever receive anything important via mail and you do not have a mailbox, it will be sent back. Do not try to go to the post office and try to get somebody to intercept that one piece. It will not happen and it will be a waste of time for everybody involved. Do not blame us for returning something that was important. If you truly do not have a use for your mailbox, feel free to remove it at your own discretion.I mention the above because I am a current letter carrier and a backup supervisor. Customers have done this in the past and I had to tell those customers (both as a letter carrier and a supervisor) that we are not responsible for any mail that was returned due to an endorsement of “NMR”.
What is the purpose of a stamp?
The US Postal Service is an independent agency of the the government. That independent part means that they don't receive tax revenues to function, instead they sell stamps. Every time you buy a stamp, you are supporting the mail service, so the purpose of a stamp is to gather enough cash so the USPS can run the business of delivering the mail. It's an interesting fact that the US Mail service is one of the very few government agencies created by the US Constitution. WIKI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usps US Postal Service history http://www.usps.com/postalhistory/welcome.htm USPS History of Postal Stamps http://www.usps.com/postalhistory/stampsandpostcards.htm?from=PostalHistory&page=Center_StampsandPostcards#hosp
Is it legal for me to use the envelopes which say "no postage necessary" for other mail?
No, those are actually pai for by the person/company you are mailing it too. That is what that bar code is. Mail freud is a felony and the postal service tends to press charges.
Why are postage stamps used?
To expand, back in the day, most mail was sent collect and was charged by distance. So, if you mailed a letter from London to Edinburgh, the receiver, if they accepted the letter, would have to fork over a shilling - roughly the amount of money that would feed a family of four for three days.You could pre-pay the postage, but to do that, you had to go to the post office while it was open. The clerk would take your money and make a manuscript note on the letter the postage had been paid. Several postal reformers, most notably Rowland Hill, wanted to establish a flat fee system - 1 penny for a letter anywhere in the United Kingdom. This was to be a pre-paid system so postmen wouldn't have to chase people getting letters down to get paid. Moreover, the charge would apply to mail that up to that point had been free - mail sent from the government and newspapers. Hill himself favored pre-printed envelopes, but people in those days just folded letters and didn't want to spend 1 penny for the postage plus extra for an envelope (paper and envelopes were cheap). As such, someone else came up with the idea for an adhesive, that could be bought in advance, and could be put on the letter to pay for up to 1 oz of mail.