When I was in college, I heard about it. We tried to buy a sponge from Wilcos with stamps, and we were told that they would not accept them as a means of payment! You can read our lawyer`s legal opinion on this topic here. But we place political messages on bills, not commercial advertising. Because we all want these bills to circulate and we stamp to send a message on a topic that is important to us, it`s legal! Of the many shortages of goods and services in the early years of the American Civil War, none was more interesting than the lack of coins and the enterprising and creative solutions to remedy this shortage through stamps. 31 USC 5103 states: „U.S. coins and currencies (including Federal Reserve notes and Treasury bills) are legal tender for all debts, government charges, taxes, and duties.” However, when the U.S. Treasury Department has determined that there is no federal law requiring a company to accept cash as a means of payment: writes, prints, or otherwise impresses. Any U.S. [coin or currency], any business or business card, any ticket or advertisement, or any communication or advertising of any kind, shall be subject to a fine under this title. Yes, stamped money can still be processed through ATMs – as long as the ticket is in proper condition. We have even had people write that they received an invoice stamped with ATMs and ATMs.
But as is often the case with unstamped money, sometimes machines simply don`t want to cooperate and spit out the bill again. Experience with stamps varies greatly on this front, and it seems to depend more on the machine than on how and where you stamp your money. However, we are working to determine what works best because we know how uncomfortable the situation can be. If you can, pay through a cash register. This ensures that it will be quickly seen by more people once it is presented as a change again. Many people assume that it is illegal to stamp or write on paper money, but they are wrong! We are not disfiguring the American currency, we are decorating the dollars! There are three things you can NOT do with paper money: If you have to pay the shipping costs, you can of course use stamps. People started carrying stamps in their purses and bags and repeatedly used them for daily shopping. Sellers gladly accepted stamps as a means of payment.
But all this hand-to-hand use quickly led to damaged stamps with sometimes unrecognizable denominations. Local post offices did not exchange damaged stamps for new ones, so this needed to be remedied. John Gault, a New York entrepreneur, decided he had the best solution. Yes! It is legal to affix political messages to the US currency. Many people assume that it is illegal to stamp or write on paper money, but this is not the case. There is a provision in the law that states that it is illegal to degrade currency „only with the intention of rendering the bill unfit for reissue.” Because we want these bills to stay in circulation, it`s legal. We are lucky, because the United States is actually one of the few countries with such a language. You can read our lawyer`s legal opinion on this topic here. You can read a legal opinion from Alan Levine, Esq., a well-known constitutional lawyer and professor. You can also read a legal notice from Stephen Justino, Esq. below. No.
There is no legitimate or practical reason for a bank to reject the stamped currency. The government has now intervened to destroy that. In a circular we issued yesterday, the postal service gave instructions to postmasters to „treat as unpaid any letter placed in a post office for shipment that could be covered with a stamp that is polluted or disfigured in the first place, or that appears to have been used to pay the shipping costs.” It is impossible to put these stamps into circulation without „polluting or evacuating” them more or less; And so the simple fact of circulating them is to make them worthless. The government, it seems to us, is committing a very flagrant injustice to the people by rejecting its own stamps, for which it has received full payment, under the simple pretext that they have been polluted. It is his duty to destroy the stamps after their use or to mark them in such a way that their reuse becomes impossible. Currency is regulated by 18 USC 333, which states: First of all, we must deal with the term „legal tender” because it does not mean what most people think! In fact, it is a little-used term that really only has its place in the courtroom and not in everyday life. 18 USC 333 is written to prohibit the malicious destruction of currency, and 18 USC 475 is written to prevent the currency from becoming a commercial advertising vehicle, as with Burger King. Because we want the stamped money to remain in circulation and we buffer to express our opinion on a political issue, not to make a profit, we are ready to go. There is a well-known episode of the comedy show „The Office” in which David Brent argues that the stamps are legal tender.
This is an argument that appears in many ad discussions, so what`s the truth? Before we talk about stamps, it`s important to remember this fact: no retailer is legally required to sell you anything or accept your offer.