Postal Service Licks Sticky Problem With New Stamps : Mail: Self-adhesives are no fuss, no muss. Some customers swear by them, skeptics find objections.

After all those years of licking foul-tasting glue, the stamp-buying public is gradually easing into a brave new era. The self-adhesive stamp is catching on.

“Convenient: No Licking!” exults the U.S. Postal Service promo.

On the scale of life’s revolutionizing inventions, the lickless stamp ranks somewhere between the ubiquitous Post-It and the still-obscure picture telephone. But on the scale of ironies, it’s off the charts--an innovation from a government agency more known as the butt of jokes about bad service than the toast of the technological world.

Postal officials are positively effusive about their creation: “It’s the stamp of the future,” said Larry Dozier, spokesman in Los Angeles for the U.S. Postal Service, which first started issuing stamps 147 years ago.

Already there is a cult following: People love ‘em once they try them. “I sold 100 packages of 18 the Saturday before last,” West L.A. window clerk Lucille Thomas said. “Cleaned me out. I had to go back and requisition some more.”

But the uninitiated are wary. “Of course, they’ll probably charge more for them, right?” asked Alex Menzies as he waited in line at the West L.A. post office. (Wrong. They’re sold at face value.) “Are they going to stay on packages?” asked Rosa Moran-Durst at the L.A. post office next to Union Station. (Yes, assures the Postal Service. In fact, fans think they stick better. )

Actually, the U.S. Postal Service has been fiddling with no-lick stamps since 1974, but the stamp quality was poor--they tended to disintegrate--and sometimes a surcharge was attached. But no more. Said U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Monica Hand in Washington, “We licked the quality issues.” (She couldn’t resist.)

There are currently five designs of the self-adhesive stamps available--a squirrel, a pine cone, a rose, a love stamp, and an eagle--two of which appeared just in the past few weeks. Coming soon: the Statue of Liberty. Just past: An array of Christmas selections.

Nobody knows who thought up the idea, but marketing tests in 15 cities in 1989 told the Postal Service its brainstorm seemed promising. (Even in 1974, when the original, problem-plagued stamp was unveiled, people were writing fan letters.) In 1992, the Postal Service introduced one design of no-lick stamp and by late 1993, it had several designs available. The innovative stamps still account for less than 5% of the 35 billion stamps printed nationwide, according to Dozier. They are particularly popular in the South. (“In the very humid areas, there’s no chance of the stamps sticking together like there is with gummed stamps,” Hand said.)

In Orange County, postal officials said the self-adhesive stamps already make up about 40% of the stamp market--just a year after they were first introduced.

“They’re going great. Especially around Christmastime, we sold an awful lot, just because they’re so convenient,” said Andrew Salana, superintendent for customer service at the Sunflower Avenue facility in Santa Ana. “We’ve had people come in and buy 300 or 400 books at once.”

In Los Angeles, about 300,000 of the self-adhesive stamps are sold in a three-month period. The three-month total is roughly equal to the number of stamps peddled each day in the city.

“In Los Angeles, we’re just beginning to get more of the (no-lick) product,” Dozier said. The more people buy, the more the Postal Service will put out there.

Promotion has been curiously low-key. Postal officials say they are waiting to test consumer response before waging an all-out ad campaign. (They want to have enough on hand if demand suddenly soars.)

Any sales pitch would have to overcome the intriguing array of objections already being raised by some skeptical consumers. Consider the backing from which the no-lick stamps are peeled:

“At a time when people are trying to cut out extra garbage, they come out with something that has extra garbage,” said actress Bronwen Booth at the West L.A. post office examining the peel-away package of stamps. “What am I going to do with this little piece of paper? You know it’s going to end up in my car.”

Vicki Berlfein fumbled trying to peel away a newfangled stamp at the same post office. “I’m having a hard time getting this one off,” said Berlfein, who owns a company that sells fire protection devices. Like Booth, she nixed the new stamp. “Habit,” Berlfein said. “I’m used to the row of stamps that goes in my dispenser that gives you one at a time. I do a lot of mailing.”

Others simply have aesthetic requirements that stamps bearing squirrels and pine cones and the like just don’t meet. “I don’t care if they’re stick-on or not; I care if they’re pretty,” said junior high school teacher Manon Tree, who even goes out of her way to use one of Los Angeles’ most elegant post offices--the mural-lined Terminal Annex, near Union Station.

Some stubborn stamp traditionalists don’t see the need for innovation. “I don’t work for Mailboxes, Etc. I’m not licking stamps all day,” said Anthony Stacks, a cook for the bureau of prisons, preferring his booklet of traditional lick-and-stick African violet stamps.

Customers have yet to master the lingo. “They say everything but self-adhesive,” Terminal Annex window clerk Deborah Merritt said. “They say, ‘Can I have the no-lick . . . the ones that stick on. . . .’ ” It’s OK. She knows. She’ll preach to the unconverted: “When they don’t know what they want, I lay it on them. I like to sell the self-adhesive ones.” In West Los Angeles, window clerk Jeanette Walker was surprised that Berlfein was clueless on the subject of the self-adhesives. “You’ve never bought them before?” she asked.

“I never heard of them,” confessed Berlfein.

“Are you serious?” Walker asked.

“And I come every week to the post office,” Berlfein said.

Berlfein, you see, prefers stamps by the roll.

Therein lies one big objection to the no-licks: They are only available in sheets of 18 at the moment. But that will probably change one day, too. Traditionalists, however, need not fear: Those old familiar perforated-edged stamps with the glue on the back are not being phased out any time soon.

But postal officials believe once you stop licking, you’ll never start again. “They’re the greatest thing since sliced bread,” said Roy Betts, manager of media relations at the U.S. Postal Service in Washington. “I swear by them. I will never lick another stamp in my life again if I can help it.”

Times staff writer Eric Lichtblau contributed to this story.