Fanmail.biz

Final update

Thought I'd put a last word on this. I hadn't touched this in 3+ years and hadn't realized this thread was stickied and people were still relying on it.

IRCs are no longer available for purchase in the United States or Great Britain. I'd imagine other countries could soon follow. Even in the countries that still sell them, IRCs aren't easy to find as most post office locations don't really seem to stock them.

If you still have an IRC, they're usable up to their expiration date, which should be printed on the IRC itself.
The current IRC, which was issued starting July 2013, will expire on Dec 31, 2017.



Everything below was last edited on Feb 02, 2011, and therefore may no longer be valid.

---

Thought this might be a worthwhile idea, since there always seem to be some confusion as to how much IRCs cost and how much one should use. So, listed by country below is the price of an IRC, and how much they can be redeemed for.

Very incomplete right now, but if you have any information to add, let me know and I'll edit this list as necessary.

Australia
price: $3.10?
value: $2.20
price calculator: http://auspost.com.au/apps/international-letter.html
notes: IRCs are valued extraordinarily high in Australia - a single IRC can cover 50g of weight, more than enough for a single 8x10.

Belgium
price: €2,00
value: €1,05

Canada
price: $3.50
value: $1.70
price calculator: http://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/ ... ution=e1s1
notes: Canada Post sells stamps via their online shop and they ship free to the United States. Because of this, it's more economical for Americans sending to Canada to simply buy stamps from Canada Post rather than using IRCs.

Czech Republic
price: 40
value: 17

France
price: €1.30
value: €0.85

Germany
price: €2,00

Japan
price: ¥150
value: ¥110

New Zealand
price: $2.99
value: $2.40

Norway
price: 16 kr
value: 13 kr

Philippines
price: P115

Poland
price: 4,5 pln
value: 2,5 pln

Portugal
price: 1.25€

UK
price: £1.40
value: 67p
pricelist: http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/cont ... tId=400036

USA
As of January 27, 2013, the U.S. Postal Service no longer sells international reply coupons.

You can buy your stamps here: http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8 ... T7RTF2XDUJ

Spain
price: 2.13€
value: 0.78€

Switzerland
price: 2.00
value: 1.40

IRC's cost £1.10 to buy in the UK. No idea what they redeem at.

canadian ircs cost 3.50....for just one
i think its ridiculous....
so
yeah

What is the status of IRC's? The old ones expired at the end of last year. Are new ones out yet?

All the IRC's I've bought since August (ish) last year have had an expiry date of 2013 on them.

Portugal - 1.25€
No idea about the redeem value.

IRC's are way too expensive. I recently decided only to buy foreign stamps from now on. It's much cheaper to to buy foreign stamps and you have a better chance of receiving a reply.

Khackdrums

What is the status of IRC's? The old ones expired at the end of last year. Are new ones out yet?

They stopped selling the expired ones here last August. The old ones shouldn't be on sale anywhere right now, since they're already expired.

khackdrums wrote:IRC's are way too expensive. I recently decided only to buy foreign stamps from now on. It's much cheaper to to buy foreign stamps and you have a better chance of receiving a reply.

They certainly are expensive. Only Australia and Canada come close to breaking even. But, I still find that a pricelist might be useful since they're still in use. I also haven't seen any difference in success rate between stamps and IRCs.

I try to pick up loads of stamps whenever I go abroad on holiday. Going to the USA and Canada this year so will restock then!!

In Japan, IRC cost 150 yen and its redeem value is 110 yen.