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Show New postal rates take effect; letters, cards up one cent past 30 years, Day said, but the cost of mailing a letter has risen only 66 percent from 3 cents to 5 cents. The new rates which also apply to second, third, and fourth class mail are designed to produce about $260 million in new revue for the Post Office Of-fice Department between Jan. 7 and June 30 when the current cur-rent fiscal year ends. One small benefit to the public of the rate change will be that stamp booklets sold by post offices will cost their face value of $1 and $2, no longer a penny extra. The new basic stamps are a grayish-blue 5-cent George Washington stamp the 70th in the Washington series and a red, 8 cent air mail stamp that shows a jet airliner flying fly-ing over the U.S. Capitol. Beginning this week, the average American family's annual an-nual bill for postage will go up about $1.80. The reason: postal rate hikes approved by Congress last fall went into effect at midnight Monday. The cost of mailing a letter or postcard rose by a penny, making the new rates: Five cents for first class letters. let-ters. Four cents for regular postcards. post-cards. Eight cents for airmail letters let-ters (one ounce.) Six cents for airmail postcards. post-cards. The hike will raise the normal nor-mal family's mailing bill to about $9 a year but Postmaster Postmas-ter General J. Edward Day said a stamp "still is one of the consumer's best bargains." Mail rates to overseas countries coun-tries remain unchanged. But rates to Mexico and Canada will increase the same as for U S. Domestic mail. The cost of living has jumped jump-ed 118 per cent during the |