Price of postage stamps

Why does the price of postage stamps vary so much depending on who serves you? Yesterday I went to my local post office and asked for a bunch of Shogatsu stamps to send cards for the New Year. They were 52 yen each. Today I went to the same post office, asked for the same thing, and was given a stack of 82 yen stamps. I didn't know how to query it in Japanese so I just bought them but I'm confused as to why this happens, it seems to happen at this particular post office a lot. I told her "kitte ni Nihon... de Nihon" in an attempt to clarify that I wanted regular domestic stamps but she continued to ring up the 82 yen ones. What is this baka gaijin doing wrong?

52 yen stamps are for postcards
82 yen stamps are for regular letters

If you don't specify then they'll default to regular letter stamps. You need to specify that you want hagaki kitte or 52 en kitte, or say that they are for nengajou.

btw, there is a such thing as new year's stamps, which is what I think the clerk thought you wanted. Was it this 82 yen design that you got by any chance?

https://www.post.japanpost.jp/kitte_hagaki/stamp/tokusyu/2014/h261030_...

Thanks for the information everyone, that explains a lot! I said "shogatsu kitte yon-mai onegashimasu", but didn't specify that it was for a card so she probably assumed it was a letter. The 52 yen ones they sold yesterday were the super kawaii sheep ones listed on that page, the ones she gave me today were regular ones. Japan Post seems to have a lot more options than back home which is why it's so confusing especially when one can't speak much Japanese. On a side note, 82 yen is very expensive for a domestic letter! I thought the prices back in Australia were bad!

So is 52 yen for a postcard! But the delivery is impeccable and fast! Not to mention weekend home delivery and great office hours, some even 24 hour.

Good point, I was surprised when the postman knocked on my door on Sunday afternoon with a delivery!

You can bring back the 82 Yen stamp to any of JP post branches with a 5 Yen coin. The post office will back an ordinary 52 and 30 Yen stamps(take 5 Yen as exchange fee) or an ordinary 52 Yen postcard and a 30 Yen stamp. You can choose either the one.