Kaiser,

Hopefully the BEP will continue to offer their special products after a long pandemic break. Special or “fancy” serial numbers on banknotes are fantastic collectibles IMHO & uncut sheets too.
BTW, I can’t believe your brother sold your stamp collection right from under you! I hope he felt guilty about it at least.
My younger brother (by 9 years) sold a great Star Wars collectible I bought on our NSA base small Stars & Stripes book store which my mother managed for 2 years. It was a publication, issue #1 Star Trek poster “magazine” that had articles on one side & a full poster on the other when you unfolded it. I paid like $1.50 for it when it was first issued around 1977 & he took it from my room & sold it to another boy after it sold out at the book store. I couldn’t find another one back then & the value has increased greatly now. But, the last thing I need now is to get into another collectibles hobby, so I’ve never sought it out. Lol.

NumisdudeTX

I love the ‘forever’ stamps. I bought $500-$600 worth of .41c ‘forever’ stamps from Costco and I still have several pack left. Since I do most of my transactions on-line, I don’t use many per year. Love the discount I get when I do use the USPS!

That is a good thing about the philatelic hobby & good for the USPS bottom line for sure. You can get most current USA postage stamps at face value from the USPS website or any Post Office. They sometimes offer some special stamps for a premium over face value that goes to charities like the Breast Cancer Awareness stamp.
The BEP used to engrave all stamp designs in the old intaglio engraving method on steel plates like they do still for all paper money, but due to high production costs switched to cheaper off-set printing stamps & mostly adhesive stamps many years ago.
WOPA+ company in Gibraltar, UK offers many stamps at face value directly through the official postal authorities in many European countries, with shipping charges on some orders. They also offer a few European coins, at a premium.
I dabbled in stamps as a kid before coins, as my father had a big collection from his military travels & had the largest stamp catalog book available in the late 70s to hold them & it was hard-bound & heavy and I found it to be fascinating.
The small coin & stamp shop in the town near our NSA base in Germany, owned by a married couple who were both specialists in coins & stamps used to give me some stamps free, mostly Third Reich ones, when I purchased coins from them. Just like with coins, you can learn so much about the world just by looking at them.
I started collecting the BEP’s premium currency items back in 1984 when I joined a local coin club & the ANA and saw an exhibition of some of the special serial number notes & uncut sheets of notes. I would get “courtesy autographs” sometimes from some of the different ladies who served as Treasurer of the USA at ANA shows & by mailing notes to them at the Treasury Department building in Washington, D.C. I had one of the small uncut sheets with autograph on it framed. It’s a fun hobby for sure.

NumisdudeTX