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For broadcast on CBS Radio Network stations May 21-22, 2005:

Fun With Numbers

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries. 

A recent story said commemorative and special stamps mean 150 to 200 million dollars a year 
to the Postal Service ... which provided a list of what it says are the "all-time" most 
collected stamps.

First of all, the list only goes back about 15 years, ranked by how much money the issues 
pulled in. Second, sometimes some of these stamps end up back on the market years later at 
face value or less, and ARE used for postage, as disappointed speculators cash out.

Elvis Presley tops the list easily, no question about it, but the next ten are multiple-stamp 
issues. Take 1992's Wildflowers, number-two on the list. It's a 50-stamp sheet. A collector 
needs only ONE Marilyn Monroe stamp (Number Twelve) for a collection, but 50 of the 
Wildflowers. 

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Moon Landing is also there, but what the list doesn't 
tell you is that one of the two stamps was ten dollars -- 35 times the going rate then!

And that's Stamp Collecting this week. 

I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News. 

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