Less than a year after their last rate increase, the US Postal Service is one again raising the price of stamps. Beggining May 12, 2008 the first class rate will rise to 42 cents for a 1 oz letter. More details of the price increase can be found at the USPS website.

If you had purchased the forever stamp at 41 cents, it will still be good after this rate increase. Not sure why anyone would have bought anything other than this after it was released (other than collectors). I guess some people don’t like the look of them, but this just goes to show that its a smart investment rather than having to purchase 1 cents stamps.

Historical Prices

Since 1975 the price of a first class stamp has steadily increased 320% from just 10 cents to the new price of 42 cents. You can see the rise illustrated in the charts below. Historically this is a rather small rate increase (2.44%), however they seem to be happening more frequently over the last 3 years.