Canadian Stamps P+10 worth?

[berubegirl]

So we are fully aware that P stamps or permanent stamps remain at going daily rate for Canada Post standard stamps. We recently purchased a lot of below face stamps here on ebay and receive a few marked P+10. When we look on the web these are described as 95 cents which is going rate plus 10cents.

In the last few days we asked three different postal clerks at official Canada Post post offices and not RPO's and got three different answers as far as what these stamps are worth.

One of the clerks stated that these stamps were still only worth P value(i.e 85cents) and that the +10 was a charity promotion that Canada Post ran a few years back and that the +10 was actually for registered charities that Canada Post would promote to support and that's where the 10cents went and this make these particular P +10 stamps worth only 85 cents.

Another clerk told us these where worth 95 cents each but tax had to be paid at time of postage to which I answered HUH? and just walked away. The item is already purchase for used so how does Canada Post expect to tax these if you do a box drop?..lol

We looked on the web for actual Canada Post official explanation but we believe that these may be older stamps and this information does not seem to be available anymore.

[maggiebvintage2010 · Accepted solution]

These are worth 85¢ - the 10¢ was a donation made at the time of original purchase.  These are called semi-postal stamps and are valid for the first amount - in your case the "P" value - the amount after the + is fundraising for Canada Post Foundation which over the years has supported various causes - mental health, children, etc.  From Wikipedia:

"A semi-postal stamp or semipostal stamp, also known as a charity stamp, is a postage stamp issued to raise money for a particular purpose (such as a charitable cause) and sold at a premium over the postal value.[1] Typically the stamp shows two denominations separated by a plus sign, but in many cases the only denomination shown is for the postage rate, and the postal customer simply pays the higher price when purchasing the stamps."

[rose-dee]

Well - you learn something every day here!  

I would never have known, not that I use many postage stamps.