Amy Scott

I thought maybe I'd copy this great idea, but the price has me reconsidering.

We're talking at least $100 for custom cards with family photos, plus $0.78 per stamp, a price that just went up again in July.

I mentioned this on a recent phone call to my dad.

His response?

Get 100 stamps for $29.

He gets these online.

My dad is a seasoned bargain hunter, but 29 cents a stamp compared to the Postal Service price of 78 cents?

How is this possible?

I did some sleuthing and came across this guy who had an immediate answer to my question about my dad's 29-cent stamps.

This is Wayne Youngblood.

Youngblood writes for Lynn's Stamp News and other trade publications and lectures about stamps and postal history.

He served on the board of the American Philatelic Society for 12 years.

That's a nonprofit organization for stamp collectors.

Youngblood says there's been an explosion in recent years in websites selling counterfeit stamps, mostly produced in China and India.

The counterfeiters even copy the special new designs the Postal Service puts out each year.

And fast.

Why not just shut them down?

For one thing, counterfeit stamps are not easy to detect, even for the Postal Service.

It's very difficult to tell unless we're analyzing these stamps side by side in our lab with very technical equipment.

Marjan Berrigan-Husted is an agent with the U.S.