This is our first trip to Pairs. So, here goes for maybe a foolish question: where can I buy postage stamps in Paris to mail postcards back home?

Curious in Oregon

Thanks.

Any old Post Office should do....

-Kevin

quote:

Originally posted by KevinWidrow:
Any old Post Office should do....

-Kevin

Yes and they seem to be everywhere so don't worry!
They're well-marked.

You may be able to buy them where you buy the postcards - or at least ask where the nearest place is to buy them (can you still buy them at a tabac?)

Cafés that sell ciggies also sell stamps.

Good advice. Thanks.

The tobacconist may not know the going rate for a postcard to the US of A. Many post offices now have self-helping stamp machines with scales that will tell you exactly the amount necessary.

I wonder whether the otherwise convenient automatic postal scale and postage dispenser can distinguish between a lightweight letter and a postcard. I don't remember an option on the touch screen for the latter.

Also, would the tabac have postcard-rate stamps? Several, I've found, don't have the right-rate stamps for international letters.

My guess is that you'll need to go to the manned post office desk.

Dave

Dave, is there still a different rate for postcards? didn't know...

Actually, I don't either. Will check.

Dave

The postage for a very light letter (one page in an envelope) to the U.S. from France is the same as for a postcard. It's 85 eurocents for anything 20 grams or under.

You can put your postcard in an envelope to send it and it will go faster. The postage required is the same (but you have to buy envelopes).

I bought stamps at one of the automated machines. If I remember correctly, it had an English language option.

quote:

You can put your postcard in an envelope to send it and it will go faster. The postage required is the same (but you have to buy envelopes).

That is a good idea. When we were in France, I was sending a postcard to each of my 3 grandchildren (same family) and the man in the post office suggested that I just put them all in the same envelope, which they sold at the post office. As I recall, the envelopes were stamped and cost no more than buying the stamps alone. Or maybe he sold me the envelopes separately, but anyway he did say that was the best way to do it.

- Roz

Thanks David and Ken, for the corrections to my post. In the meantime, I had read La Poste's Web site and found no postcard rate. France is a member of the Universal Postal Union, but that does not involve universal rate categories. Hm...

You can, apparently, send "electronic postcards" from France, ordered online from the La Poste site, with stock pictures, or your own pictures uploaded. The cards are printed out (somewhere) and delivered by the postman. But that's another, complicated story.

Dave

Usually you can buy stamps at the "Tabac", that is, at the selling points of cigarettes. Check for the vertical ovoid sign outside some Cafés (picture below), it means there's a selling stand for cigarettes & tobacco in the café, which means stamps also. They sell by the stamp or by 10-stamp, a stamp costing 54 Euro-cents or something like that.They're obliged by law to sell stamps if they sell tobacco, but some are reluctant to stock stamps and you may have to ask in several "tabacs". For the America or the world, just put 2 stamps, it should be more than enough if the letter weughs less than 20 grams.

The hotel reception desk (if you are in one, as opposed to an appartment, of course)may also sell stamps - ours last year not only sold the stamps, but then offered to post them for us (and they did get to their destination!) - this was the very friendly Hotel du College de France.

quote:

I was sending a postcard to each of my 3 grandchildren (same family) and the man in the post office suggested that I just put them all in the same envelope

But it's so much more fun to receive a stamped, postmarked postcard. Even if it takes a week longer, it's worth the wait. I even mail postcards back to myself as journals-- if I don't have time to write them on the trip, I mail blank ones just to have the postmark, and write them after they arrive home.

If there is no postcard rate - a postcard from France to North America costing 0.85 euro cents to mail, the same as a light letter - then cards should arrive as quickly as letters, shouldn't they? (Letters take about one week.)

Dave

In the post offices there are self service machines that have touch tone screens that indicate where you might want to send things.