Can I put a stamp anywhere on an envelope?

I’d say to stick it in the upper right hand corner

I doubt the Post Office would take your envelope with the stamp in the wrong place. Probably messes with human/computer efficiency.

I think you can, but it might get delayed in delivery because it is not where they expected it to be.

We should try it and see.

Where is AstroChuck when you need him?

I used to rebel and put my stamps in weird places. you can but they dont like it. I always do the flag ones upside down.

I covered a package with entire sheets of stamps once.
It got to its destination, but you should have seen the look I got at the post office.
Sorry, AC. I’m one of those people.

@madcapper: Little harsh, no?

Yes, the question works.

@ augustian yes I am being harsh…
Is this a question forum or the 3rd grade? I assume if you can type on a keyboard you can send a letter…

I would agree with you if the question was:
Where am I supposed to put the stamp?

However, it’s not. It seems pretty valid to wonder about
USPS mailing requirements (as it is not readily posted on their site).
Not to mention that since 9/11, USPS has gotten a bit stricter about such things.

I’ve never believed in that whole
“there is no such thing as a stupid question” thing.

Though I do believe in the whole “if you don’t have anything nice
[productive or at least entertaining] to say, don’t say anything at all”.

Um…to clarify:

I’ve never believed in that whole
“there is no such thing as a stupid question” thing.
=> I do believe that there are stupid questions.

@nimis oh sorry read it wrong haha! none-the-less I stick to my opinion!

@mapcapper Stop being a dick. We understand you think the question is stupid. Why not just ignore it? She obviously knows the place the stamp is supposed to go, since she said so in the details. She just wondered what would happen if someone placed the stamp somewhere else. There’s nothing wrong with “what if” questions.

@ MacBean no. no. and oops…

I’m not sure if someone already answered (too lazy to read). It does have to be in the upper right. My gf did it upside-down once (lower left) and bothered to call USPS to find out if it would still mail. They said it wouldn’t.

Where is AstroChuck? He works for the postal service!

Thank you MacBean

I know my question wasn’t up to par with this one!

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Where’s AstroChuck when we need him…..

no i think its required to be in the right hand corner

Did anybody ever actually answer the question? I thought of it again yesterday as I was dropping my late holiday cards in the box outside the post office and so I asked my father (a rural carrier for ~25 years) about it.

As long as it is correct postage and it is someplace where it is noticed, it will go through. He’s even seen and delivered some mail with the stamp(s) on the back of the envelope.

chaos brightens my day, attempt it in small doses and big!

How’s this for a gem? When my wife and I were sending out wedding invitations a year ago, we wrote the sendee’s address on the front and affixed the stamp to the top right of the same side (of course), but stuck labels with our return address on the flap to seal it. As was later explained to us by the USPS, apparently someone that day ran our 50+ cards through the machine backward so that the bar code was on the wrong side, then the mail man, somehow not catching this, delivered every single card back to our house. He never even questioned why we were getting so many of the exact same cards delivered at once. This was in Malden, MA which might explain the story right there.

I don’t know how the post office sorts or handles mail, so I’m not sure of the exact reasoning behind the placement of the stamp. It could be the way the sorter machines are designed to read the mail.

I’m sure any mail the machines reject the workers have to deal with manually so eventually it would get to its destination.