Perhaps one could mail ones various subscribers pieces of a puzzle, to then be put together via various means, rather like a rolling geocache.

Posted November 9, 2004 6:05 PM by xeger

Trade them for a single Interstellar Reply Coupon.

Posted November 9, 2004 6:12 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

"Trade them for a single Interstellar Reply Coupon."

That made coffee come out my nose! Thanks for the laugh.

Posted November 9, 2004 6:18 PM by Kathy

If your local post office is anything like mine, the clerk will have to ask someone what's going on.....

Generally, you SHOULD get some postage from them. How much is up in the air, depending on the age of the IRCs...

An International Reply Coupon Primer

And from the US Postal Service

What are international reply coupons?
International reply coupons (IRCs) provide a convenient method for you to prepay replies from foreign countries. You can send your correspondent one or more coupons. Your correspondent exchanges the coupon for postage in his or her country. One coupon in the United States is exchangeable in any other participating member country for a stamp or stamps representing the minimum postage required for an unregistered airmail letter. If you are sending something that requires more postage than a standard letter, you should inquire with the appropriate foreign postal administration about how many IRCs will be needed to complete your transaction.

Posted November 9, 2004 6:19 PM by Bill Blum

With my experience with post offices, if you're wanting to do something peculiar that may involve actually talking to the local postmaster, the best bet is to visit a small town post office of some quaint and affluent bedroom community where they have the time and will be delighted by the novelty of the task at hand, as opposed to cranky and stressed out at you holding up the line. Or you can try your local post office at a non-crunch time, especially if you're on a first-name basis with the clerks.

Posted November 9, 2004 6:23 PM by Kevin Andrew Murphy

Well, one could artfully apply them to one's body and ask for a post-paid trip to the continent of one's choice.

But seriously, I thought you had to present them with a mail piece, but the USPS website simply says that they are valid if issued after 1975 and exchangable for airmail postage at a value depending on when they were issued. I've only ever had one to redeem, though, and it confused the heck out of the postal clerk.

Posted November 9, 2004 6:28 PM by Larry Brennan

Suggest with all the usual Postal Service politeness that someone has been running a Ponzi Scheme?

Posted November 9, 2004 7:05 PM by Clark E Myers

I posted the main part of your question on this website for philatelists:

http://www.kbnet.com/book/html/frajolaboard.html

It might distracted my friends there from a comically acrimonious discussion of the types of paper used to print stamps in the US late in the 19th century.

Posted November 9, 2004 7:05 PM by Greg Ioannou

Try sending back the Iron-60, per this breaking story:

Exploded Star Possibly Affected Human Evolution

Mon Nov 8, 3:01 PM ET
Science - Space.com

Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
SPACE.com

A star that exploded about nearly three million years ago left traces of debris on Earth and might have affected the course of human evolution, a new study suggests.

When particles from the explosion bombarded Earth's atmosphere over a long stretch of time, climate change could have forced early humans to fan out in search of food, the reasoning goes....

[and crank up your word processors, Science Fiction writers and Sci-Fi screenwriters!]

Posted November 9, 2004 7:09 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

I have had a similar experience a number of times -- perhaps not quite as many IRCs, but certainly a wide geographic and temporal range. And have tried three different post offices. I'm talking about the Australian PO, but I imagine my experience isn't completely irrelevant. One post office refused to accept any coupon that was more than six months old or that didn't have a date stamp on it (as a small but significant number didn't). One quite happily gave us the value of the coupons in international stamps. One would only honour coupons sufficient to send the overseas mail we had with us at the counter. The most cooperative and flexible office was at a mail exchange which had very little counter traffic; the least was in a small office in a suburban shopping centre, which was also the place where we did least business. If I remember correctly, in all three places, time and again, the person behind the counter would have to ask for advice. I got quite good at helping them interpret what their screen was asking of them, though of cuorse the curmudgeonly ones were't interested and certainly weren't open to my telling them that the rules allowed them to give me stamps.

We are now unwaveringly vigilant in my office, and never accumulate more than two weeks worth of IRCs without a redemptive visit.

Posted November 9, 2004 7:34 PM by Jonathan Shaw

Oh, dear, the IRC stash. Perhaps if you took it to the main post office a few blocks uptown they would at least know what to do with it, even if they're probably really swamped with customers.

And I think another question worth considering is what exactly you plan to do with the not insignificant number of stamps you'll get in return. I mean, you could probably paper a small room with the number of stamps you're going to get for those IRCs.

Posted November 9, 2004 8:18 PM by Sarah

I knew it.

My IRCs are in that pile.

What is this, let's make all the paranoid fantasies real week?

All the time as I forced the little old ladies in the post office in Sketty to get IRCs from head office, when I was the only person who had ever ordered them in the hundred and forty years of the post office's existence, I suspected that in fact the editors to whom I was sending them would just shove them in a drawer and never look at them again.

Not only was my work going to be rejected, but the whole ghastly effort of getting those damn IRCs, the times I went home again because they didn't have any IRCs today, and all those horrified looks ("Oh no, it's Mrs. Walton carrying a manuscript again, surely it's your turn to serve her,") all that shuffling was in fact for nothing. Thank goodness the ladies in the post office don't know, the shock would probably kill them. They thought their whole effort was vindicated when I sold a novel and I started to send back copyedits and proofs. They felt their struggle with the IRCs had been worthwhile. Little did they know I sold it in email. Don't disillusion them!

IRCs are in fact a pyramid scheme or something of that nature, where you spend money now (way more than postage costs) in the hope that one day they will be worth something to somebody. I expect the post office keeps the money and uses it to paint pillar boxes red or something useful of that nature.

I've had IRC nightmares, you know. There's no wonder I have a phobia about printing things out and sending them off.

I think you ought to send those poor IRCs to all the foreign submitters in your slush pile. I think you ought to give them each a generous handful, and then they can get back into circulation as they send them off with other submissions to pile up in some other editorial drawer, like Newberry Fruits.

I knew it, dammit!

Posted November 9, 2004 8:40 PM by Jo Walton

Jo Walton:

First of all, congratulations on your well-deserved World Fantasy Award!

Secondly, you're actually correct in the middle of being funny, just where people least expect the truth.

The "Ponzi Scheme"
Copyright © 1996, Mark C. Knutson

AKA IRC: the Dark Side.

Posted November 9, 2004 8:46 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

Jo - I believe that the US Postal Service uses the proceeds from unredeemed IRCs to buy Segway scooters for letter carriers. Either that or extra sessions at rudeness school for their counter service staff.

Posted November 9, 2004 8:57 PM by Larry Brennan

What are Newberry Fruits? A quick web search produced numerous sites vituperating them, another site that mentions they are no longer available, but no explanations of what they are.

Posted November 9, 2004 8:59 PM by Greg Ioannou

I used to cash those in all the time when I worked at Penguin. Best thing to do is take them a reasonable pile at a time. They're supposed to give you air mail stamps in return.

I think there might be some sort of expiration date, though, you'd have to check on that.

Posted November 9, 2004 9:21 PM by Jen

how long have you been in your current offices? this move is going to kill you -- and right after you've moved house, too. yik.

p.s. i think our assistants throw out the ircs.

Posted November 9, 2004 10:13 PM by sdn

As noted by numerous others, most of the time a clerk will be uncertain what to do with an IRC. It's a pretty rare occurrence for most of them.

Sorta like going to a tire shop and asking one of the tire-changers to rebuild a carburetor.

Posted November 9, 2004 10:23 PM by Bruce Arthurs

Duh! I'm an idiot. Count 'em and list 'em on eBay:

http://search.ebay.com/International-Reply-Coupon_W0QQbsZSearchQQcatrefZC6QQfromZR2QQgotopageZQQlopgZQQsacategoryZQ2d1QQsapricehiZQQsapriceloZQQsatitleZQ22InternationalQ20ReplyQ20CouponQ22QQsbrftogZ1QQsofocusZbsQQsosortorderZ2QQsosortpropertyZ2QQsotrZ2

Start the whole kaboodle at $1. I bet they'll do well, especially if you list some of the countries represented.

Posted November 9, 2004 10:48 PM by Greg Ioannou

Thanks to the magic of TinyURL (dot com), Greg's screen-warpingly long web address becomes....

http://tinyurl.com/4vy9d

! Ta-da !

(Why yes, I am a little snot. Thanks for noticing!)

Posted November 9, 2004 11:04 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Jonathan's "Interstellar Reply Coupon" comment, of course, brings Hayford Peirce's short story "Mail Supremacy" to mind.

Posted November 9, 2004 11:09 PM by Christopher Davis

The tinyurl for tinyurl.com is longer than their URL! It is http://tinyurl.com/u

Posted November 9, 2004 11:22 PM by Greg Ioannou

Christopher Davis:

Or Dr. Christine Carmichael's

A SCORPION-TAILED ROMANCE
[Space & Time, ed. Gordon Linzner, No.82,
pp.86-92, Fall 1993] ISSN 0271-2512

Her story also relates to the Epic Guidelines Particle. Anyone have a comment on her story for me to pass on to her?

Posted November 10, 2004 12:49 AM by Jonathan Vos Post

The tinyurl for http://tinyurl.com/u is http://tinyurl.com/7uw !

Posted November 10, 2004 1:18 AM by Steven desJardins

I'm dying of curiosity: Why does Tor have all these IRCs? If aspiring authors send them in their mss submission packages along with a self-addressed envelope, wouldn't the IRCs get used when Tor sends out the rejection letters? (I know I'm going to feel really stupid when you point out the obvious answer that everyone else seems to have clued into, but what the heck -- I'm used to it.)

Posted November 10, 2004 1:45 AM by FranW

Were you perhaps affected by the bending of time in L-Space, and wanted to have a glancing reference to Terry Prachett's new book?

Posted November 10, 2004 3:09 AM by liz

Greg:

IIRC, Newberry Fruits were soft fruit jellies with a liquid centre, sold in boxes like chocolates. Because they contained almost no natural ingredients they were about half the price of an equivalently-sized box of chocolates, and thus much in demand as gifts for people one didn't particularly like. Presumably, this also made them a top choice for corporate gifts from printers and the like.

I rather liked them, and I'm sorry they've gone - they were the only sweet I know of that included goosberry as a standard flavour.

Posted November 10, 2004 4:10 AM by Sam Dodsworth

It seems to stabilize at 22 characters. The tinyurl for http://tinyurl.com/7uw is http://tinyurl.com/8ee

Posted November 10, 2004 8:17 AM by Greg Ioannou

It's really cruel and unusual pubishment for the moving people to allow David only 4 cartons to move office.

On the other hand, as his wife, I sure wish I could set that kind of limit!

Posted November 10, 2004 9:41 AM by Kathryn Cramer

Fran: my bet would be that it was easier to just pay the postage to return the things than bother messing about with the hard-won IRCs the poor struggling foreign authors had hand-hewn from the primeval IRC stratae in their homelands.

Greg: Newberry Fruits are a disgusting kind of candy, in a box. When I was a child, we were regularly given a box for Christmas, which we would re-wrap and pass on to someone else, who doubtless did the same. We must at some point have opened and eaten one, or I wouldn't remember how disgusting they are, but the point of the joke is that the box is in endless circulation.

I'm thrilled to know Sam liked them -- it's logical that there was an end point and consumption, and he must have been it.

In Lancaster, England, in the late eighties and early nineties, we played this game with WRATH OF KHAN photonovels, but that's another story.

Sharyn: You too! It's a conspiracy!

Editors generally: Couldn't you just tell foreign contributors to give you an email address for free and speedy rejections, thus reducing the IRC mountains?

Posted November 10, 2004 9:41 AM by Jo Walton

I feel kind of bad now - if it wasn't for me then all those boxes of Newberry Fruits might still be circulating.

Just for the record, though, I'd like it to be known that I draw the line at "Wrath of Kahn" photonovels.

Posted November 10, 2004 10:09 AM by Sam Dodsworth

Hams use IRCs a lot, and they can be sometimes sold in that market for more than the redemotion value, but for less then the PO sells them.
They do have to be date stamped properly, and some number aren't due to ignorance on the part of the issuing clerk.

I have a number that I've received for QSL cards, too.

Posted November 10, 2004 10:15 AM by Doug Faunt

Ah, Newberry Fruits are the English equivalent of fruitcakes!

Posted November 10, 2004 10:39 AM by Magenta

Shockingly, the English actually eat fruitcakes.

Then again, they eat things called Bubble and Squeak and Spotted Dick too.

Posted November 10, 2004 11:11 AM by Larry Brennan

Shockingly, the English actually eat fruitcakes.

I eat fruitcakes, too, and I'm American.

Posted November 10, 2004 11:46 AM by Mary Aileen Buss

I have an old friend who's a window clerk at an NYC USPS station. Perhaps he could help you. I'll talk to you soon.

Posted November 10, 2004 12:17 PM by Robert L

I eat fruitcakes and I'm an American. My wife is already pressuring me to start on this year's batch.

Posted November 10, 2004 12:21 PM by Harry Connolly

I love fruitcake, as long as it has been appropriately brandied. Fruitcake should have a couple of cups of brandy per cake, and it should soak in the brandy for about 6 months. (My mother, who doesn't drink, used to bake a couple of cakes in June and keep them at the back of the fridge until Xmas.) The non-alcoholic versions are lame.

Posted November 10, 2004 12:31 PM by Greg Ioannou

Your building has a 13th floor?
too noo noo noo noo (my version of twilight zone theme)

Posted November 10, 2004 12:44 PM by mayakda

Do they all look the same? Or are they like stamps: each country with its own IRC design? I've only ever seen one, years ago, when I was a boy, when I used write away to international shortwave broadcasters to ask them for stickers.

Posted November 10, 2004 12:45 PM by Grant Barrett

Thanks, Robert.

Grant, they come in two varieties, but within those categories they all look alike. For some reason, the larger sort has a picture on it of a child who's a ringer for the young Shirley Temple. They're all in French.

Jo, this is not as old an accumulation as you might imagine.

The real problem is that we no longer have our own mailroom. If we can't weigh a manuscript, and look up how much it costs to mail it back to its owner in Grand Fenwick, we can't figure out how many stamps to put on it. It would take a lot of time to get that info from the mail room. On the other hand, it takes no time at all to toss the returning manuscript onto the outgoing mail stack. Thus it happens. But back when we had our own mail room, we really did use the stamps on Tor mail.

Posted November 10, 2004 1:37 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Thanks to Mr. Ponzi, it's now against postal regulations to exchange more than 10 IRCs at one time.

Posted November 10, 2004 2:34 PM by James D. Macdonald

There's a contest idea: design an IRC for Grand Fenwick. A cask of wine with crossed longbows, overlaid on the AEC symbol?

Posted November 10, 2004 2:41 PM by Linkmeister

Kevin Andrew Murphy said:

the best bet is to visit a small town post office of some quaint and affluent bedroom community where they have the time and will be delighted by the novelty of the task at hand

I have just the post office, if you're interested. It's in Bristow, Virginia in the middle of an empty field. Most of the time the employees sit in back and watch soap operas because they have so little to do. If you're bored too, they let you in back and you can sit and watch with them.

Posted November 10, 2004 4:28 PM by Alison

Just how far is that from Old Town Manassas? The main post office gets pretty crowded some times. Technically, Bristow starts just a bit further from me than the main Manassas post office.

Posted November 10, 2004 7:09 PM by Marilee

"Then again, they eat things called Bubble and Squeak and Spotted Dick too."

But those sound harmless, or at least Mostly Harmless. But they also eat Toad in the Hole, leaving one wondering if every English cook has a six-year-old boy (and not Little Lord Fauntleroy either) who they ask to name new dishes.

Posted November 10, 2004 7:13 PM by CHip

Re fruitcake: I hear some of the best fruitcake is the stuff made by these monks in Kentucky using the local whiskey. See http://www.monks.org/

(I like the bourbon fudge they make, myself.)

Posted November 10, 2004 9:26 PM by Chaz Boston Baden

Then again, they eat things called Bubble and Squeak and Spotted Dick too.

Not to mention Faggots in Sauce.

Posted November 10, 2004 11:06 PM by Robert L

Katherine, dear, everyone got only four boxes. My imagination makes me wish I could have been there to see it. My sense of self-preservation makes me really happy to be 2500 miles away.

I also eat fruitcakes. But it's way to late to start them for this year. Anything you bake this month would be for next year.

T., you could give the IRCs to the mailroom, and let them figure out what to do with them. It would be the proper way to dispose of them.

Posted November 10, 2004 11:31 PM by Beth Meacham

Toad in the Hole, anyone?

Posted November 10, 2004 11:58 PM by Epacris

Oops. Sorry - just saw that CHip has already noted that comestible :)

Does "Pie Floater" have double meaning -- or indeed meaning at all -- to anyone not Australian?

Posted November 11, 2004 12:07 AM by Epacris

Epacris: "pie floater" has had a meaning to me ever since I read The Last Continent.

Posted November 11, 2004 2:19 PM by cd

Sarah wrote:
And I think another question worth considering is what exactly you plan to do with the not insignificant number of stamps you'll get in return.

Bestow them on those who open the travel-stained packages the coupons arrive in -- the interns.

Posted November 11, 2004 3:18 PM by Dana

If the Chistianists in Tennessee legislated "pi" to be equal to 3, in order to make Math homework easier, and because the Bible tells of a circle 10 cubits across and 30 cubits around; and if someone put that into a computer, and transformed it into Floating Point arithmetic as 3.0 rather than 3.141592653589793238462643383279501971...; then: would that someone be a "Pi Floater?"

Or is that just more of Emperor Bush II's "fuzzy math?"

Posted November 11, 2004 3:55 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

OK--my friend at the Post Office says that you can exchange IRCs for stamps good for the minimum postage to a foreign country, i.e., for 80¢ worth of stamps apiece, at any post office. You don't need to actually be mailing a letter. You can't exchange them for cash. I would count them and add up the total, and maybe take it in something like a combination of 20¢ and 1¢ stamps if they'll let you...more flexible that way. But at the very least you should be able to get a pile of 80¢ stamps...

Posted November 11, 2004 8:32 PM by Robert L

Beth -- fruitcake doesn't \have/ to mature forever, especially if you start right by sousing the contents. My family used to spend most of Thanksgiving weekend+ chopping, shelling, and grinding, dumping the results in a huge pot and adding alcohol as we went. The result was baked on Sunday, mixed with just enough batter so that the cooked cake wouldn't fall into its components when \carefully/ cut into 1" cubes. It tended to evaporate at holiday parties.

Posted November 11, 2004 8:35 PM by CHip

If you haven't had your fill of strangely named english dishes, may I suggest Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books? The captain's table often bears quite wonderfully named dishes, such as "Drowned Baby". (I think that even beats "Lady fingers", whatever they are.)

Posted November 14, 2004 8:17 AM by NelC

Jonathon: Could faith-based maths explain problems with targeting & such in the Star Wars Defence System?

Re fruitcakes (edible version <g>) this brings back memories of when I used to send a friend who'd moved to inland Brazil a home-baked Christmas Cake. I'd cook it, soak it in quite a bit of sherry &/or brandy (sometimes a dash of whisk[e]y), wrap it in many layers of greased paper, brown paper, a bit of foil, seal in a tin, label carefully & post off by seamail quite a few months before in order to get there in time. It apparently matured quite well during the voyage.

Posted November 14, 2004 12:37 PM by Epacris

Epacris:

"[Jonathan]: Could faith-based maths explain problems with targeting & such in the Star Wars Defence System?"

Yes. I think the problem began with budgeting $666,666,666 for the Phase I study. But the Pentagon promises to spend less than $666,666,666,666 for the total R&D, deployment, operations, and maintenance. Or that's what I heard was said at an Ashcroft Prayer Breakfast.

Posted November 14, 2004 3:17 PM by Jonathan Vos Post

I just noticed that a lot of 145 USED International Reply Coupons (all from Czechoslovakia) sold for $1,100 in an auction in New Jersey on the weekend. ( Here, if anyone cares.) Hmmm.

Posted December 16, 2004 12:22 PM by Greg Ioannou

Got some spam here.

Posted April 25, 2007 10:49 PM by Sumana Harihareswara

... I think.

Posted April 25, 2007 10:50 PM by Fragano Ledgister sees self-aware spam

.
[Posted from 59.94.224.197]

Posted November 6, 2007 12:00 AM by .

And should get the boot

Posted November 6, 2007 12:03 AM by Terry Karney Says Raven is a spambot

Hello out there. For everyone's information, many of these things are valuable to collectors; particularly in Europe where some of can often bring up to €150 or more.

You're welcome to check with me for free advice.

Posted December 12, 2007 7:36 PM by Peter Robin

Hello out there. For everyone's information, many of these things are valuable to collectors; particularly in Europe where some of can often bring up to €150 or more.

You're welcome to check with me for free advice.

Posted December 12, 2007 7:37 PM by Peter Robin

Nothing personal, Peter, but messages like yours put me instantly in High Scam Alert mode.

Posted December 12, 2007 7:48 PM by James D. Macdonald

Mr. Robin is registered with the American Philatelic Society as a dealer, for whatever that's worth, and people are certainly selling IRCs on eBay for respectable sums.

Posted December 12, 2007 8:08 PM by Dan Blum

Spam from IP 76.2.61.7 deleted

Posted January 27, 2008 4:47 PM by [spam deleted]

Somebody seems to be dumping potted meat products into the way back machine, and they're showing up on old threads.

Posted January 27, 2008 4:53 PM by Summer Storms sees spam

Drat, you beat me to it.

Posted January 27, 2008 5:00 PM by Terry Karney

It would be more interesting if it was a Ponzi scheme.

Posted January 27, 2008 5:41 PM by Stefan Jones