
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 25, 1990                   TAG: 9005250327
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NEW STAMP TAKES NO LICKING

The Postal Service has introduced what it calls a revolutionary innovation: a plastic postage stamp that not only needs no licking, but also can be purchased at banks' automated teller machines.

Unlike a "self-affixing" stamp that flopped during tests in 1974 because of faulty glue, officials say, the new polyester stamps will stick better to letters than do the familiar gummed-paper stamps.

"Also, they're extremely durable," said Art Shealy, a Postal Service spokesman in Washington. "And they won't stick together because they are highly moisture-resistant, even if you've been carrying them around in your wallet."

The new 25-cent stamps, which feature an American flag motif, went on sale last Friday in automatic-teller machines in Washington State, where they will be test-marketed for six months by the Seattle First National Bank.

They are also available nationwide at post offices that have special windows for stamp collectors.

If the no-lick stamps catch on, as officials hope they will, they could be in wide circulation as early as next spring.

"What a great idea," said Liz Rios, who was waiting patiently in line Thursday to mail a letter at the Times Square Station post office in Manhattan. "The regular stamps taste ookie, and they're always sliding off."

The specifications for the new stamps, the spokesman said, were dictated by the method of sale - principally through moisture-sensitive bank machines. They are thus available in $3 peel-off "sheetlets" that are the same size and thickness of a unit of paper currency.

"That also means that you carry a sheetlet around in your wallet with your money, and when you need a stamp, you just peel one off," Shealy said.

The spokesman added that with the sale of stamps by banks, the Postal Service could vastly expand an earlier program to increase retail stamp sales outside of post offices.

The so-called "stamps on consignment" program, Shealy said, was a result of surveys showing that "on average, as many as 50 percent of people standing in a line at a busy time in the post office - say early in the morning or right before closing - are there to buy stamps."

by CNB