Review of the Year 2024

Welcome to the delayed Review of the Year.  An exercise that I usually undertake during the last couple of weeks in November until nearly Christmas has been fitted into occasional dips into the past year over the last couple of weeks.  If you think I missed anything really notable and worth recalling, please let me know.

Definitives

Royal Mail's Swapout scheme continued to send Queen Elizabeth stamps in exchange for the invalidated ones, although some King Charles values appeared during the year.  Similarly the sale of Machins continued at Post Office branches and they were only gradually replaced by definitives of the new reign.  It is to be hoped that PO central stores has kept the two stocks separate to ensure the old ones are used up first.   The King Charles 1st class Large business sheet continued to be advertised on their online shop but as we know it hadn't been printed and customers received the Machin version.

Commemorative or Special Stamps

Once again Royal Mail decided that two music acts were worthy of being commemorated in the Music Giants series, together with two television programmes.  Worthy anniversaries included the 170th anniversary of the Meteorological Office, the centenary of the first British commemorative stamps and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Winston Churchill.  

For those who prefer thematic issues subjects rather than those from the entertainment industry, the year offered dogs, dinosaurs, spiders, Vikings, and the 60th Anniversary of the Red Arrows flying display team. 

The Union Flag stamp was reissued in August with the head of the King for no obvious reason, and it was also included in the Churchill PSB.  1st & 2nd class Wales definitives were also issued with the new head, and RM announced that there would be no more airmail-rate stamps in the country definitive range.

Errors

There were fewer this year than in some previous years, but those that did surface continued to amaze, and beg questions!   A couple on stamps printed on envelopes by mailing houses were unusual - one with no denomination and one printed in a poor grey-lilac colour instead of green.  

A major error on a 1st class Machin definitive from 2022 involved a 2mm leftward shift of the iridescent printing hiding the source code.   A sheet of the Machin 2nd class Large was found in a PO branch with no datamatrix codes.

We thought that the use of the Movember slogan in July was an error until it appeared from mail centres across the country.  No explanation was ever forthcoming from Royal Mail, and it didn't reappear in November.

Prestige books, as usual, were a source for lucky collectors with the Dungeons & Dragons book appearing with two definitive panes, and the Churchill definitive pane on Royal Mail's official first day cover appearing with two sets of barcodes on each stamp.

Postage Rates

Royal Mail continued the practice of two changes to postage rates started in 2023. 1st class letters, which started the year at £1.25 increased to £1.35 from 2 April, and to £1.65 on 7 October.  The postal regulator, Ofcom, controls how much 2nd class rates can be changed, and they increased also by 10p to 85p in April, but remained unchanged in October.   The Worldwide Airmail basic letter rate increased by 30p in April, and another 30p to £2.80 in October.

The compensation levels for Royal Mail Signed For were more than halved in April and a new over-the-counter Tracked service was introduced, although it took some time for it to be available in all branches. Unfortunately for this service no stamps could be used and payment was by cash or card only.

Forgeries & Penalties

With the volume and range of Chinese forgeries available on well-known marketplaces unrelenting, Royal Mail introduced a smartphone app to identify whether a definitive stamp was genuine, but only by scanning the barcode.  Even that was not totally foolproof and they suspended the £5 surcharge penalty for using forged stamps in April.  It remains in place for unpaid mail, or mail sent inland using Universal Mail International Postcard Stamps. (Example written up here.)  

The number and variety of counterfeit special stamps, including gummed & perforated rather than self-adhesive continued to expand.  A new forgery of the 1st Large 2021 Christmas stamp appeared with blatantly wrong die-cuts and the barcode copied from Royal Mail's publicity photos.

Post and Go

There have been no new Post and Go stamps since Royal Mail decided to stop using their own (IAR) machines at the end of 2023, although the usual contributors have kept the January post regularly updated with news of new discoveries, new Self-Service Kiosk installations and, more often, removals often due to closure/relocation of post branches.  

I don't know how many people are still collecting, by Malcolm, Trevor, Robert, DaveC, and Anonymous contributors have continued to keep you updated (apologies for any names I missed, skimming through).  I'll carry this on with a new January post early on. Please wait for that before any January news. 

Slogan Postmarks

A reader has already suggested that there were not as many slogans in 2024 as before.  In fact we recorded 20 between us, up from 18 last year but down on the 26 of 2022.  Apart from the Saints' Days and Christmas (only one type), many were the regular health or greetings-card related or other 'special days', although we also had slogans marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the Air Ambulances, and one exhorting us to send in our Postal Votes for the general election.  An oddity which seemed like an error but which obviously was not was the use of the Movember slogan in July, which was widespread. The slogan was not used in November. 

Postboxes

The only item of note was the installation of the first King Charles postbox (with a new crown).  There were no reports nor any publicity from Royal Mail of any redecoration in other colours, although I did show some green ex-British examples from our trip to Ireland.

Royal Mail operations

Confusion continued in both Post Office branches and at Royal Mail Customer Service and Business Customer Services, with the latter asserting to one reader that postage stamps could not be used on Special Delivery items, and neither could the SF & SD barcode labels.  

They eventually conceded that this advice was wrong, but the experiences of readers at PO branches continues to vary widely as experienced staff are let go and grocery shop assistants take over.  One even suggested that older stamps had to be used before the price increase in October.

The new Tracked 24/48 service which was announced in April resulted in an increase in the volume of tracked mail handled by postal delivery workers.  Being guaranteed for 24 or 48 hours, compensation for delays to these could be claimed, and so RM management insisted they had priority over untracked letters.  

Needless to say the senior management denied that ordinary mail was delayed, but if insufficient time is allowed for all mail to be delivered, then ordinary mail has to be left behind.  Posties confirmed that there were "Specific and explicit instructions to ensure tracked are done above all else", and in the month before Christmas, the volumes increased further with ordinary mail for some addresses being left
for 3 days or more.

On the Post Office side, the much-heralded and gently-trialled replacement for Horizon seems to have been abandoned before it got very far (but after much public money had been spent on it), and Fujitsu will continue to support PO systems for a while longer.

The Horizon Scandal

The heavily trailed ITV reconstruction Mr Bates Vs the Post Office had a much bigger impact than the producers, the cast and the postmasters and their lawyers could possibly have expected, with the government announcing by mid January that wrongly convicted postmasters would have their convictions overturned.  The legislation was produced in due course and such was the cross-party support that it was one of the few pieces of legislation pushed through parliament in the week before the recess for the general election.

Elsewhere the Statutory Inquiry continued to its final public evidence hearings and cross-examinations in December, followed by closing submissions from the Core Participants Legal Representatives. 

 I haven't followed these later stages as closely as I had been but there is a good summary by the Inquiry Secretariat here, which covers the year's key points.  Expect the lengthy Inquiry Report in the late spring.

The blog, the business

Despite a fall-off in my output over the last couple of years (see right - shows posts per year) the number of viewers and contributors continues to increase and we are now approaching 9 million views as against 6 million in August last year.  This is in no small part due to contributors sending examples of slogan and other postmarks, and errors, and making comments and asking questions.  Thank you all.

With the Machin series coming to an end, but nothing significant in the new definitive series, there is just not as much news.

I continue to add occasional posts to the parallel "Modern British Postal History" blog (originally intended to cover Machins on cover, but they need a lot more sorting out before here is anything significant to add).   It is now expanded from Machins alone to include examples of modern surcharge patterns and recent special stamps on cover.   The former shows how Royal Mail got things right and wrong in equal measure, and the latter how difficult it is to find proper uses of modern special stamps.

As for the business, the year started with continued efforts to get as many invalidated stamps as possible into the hands of collectors.  I've now stopped this and will take down the lists soon, although they will still be available as reference for anyone who wants the listings.  I'll then do a stocktake and send the rest to Royal Mail for exchange, a process which is taking over 4 weeks now as they reduce the staffing allocated to the task.

Projects for the year ahead include listing definitive first day covers, including those not available on Royal Mail standing order, and some with single from PSBs rather than more expensive complete panes.   I'll also make a list of the less common Post & Go stamps for sale; there are some odd values available for short periods only or from limited kiosks.  And as I work through my boxes and stock-books, who knows what might be available?   (I've still got aerogrammes as well!)

I will also start selling stamps for postage again, to reduce stocks of special issues and more common Post and Go.  The latter are especially useful being NVIs in all cases.  Some bargains will be available there.  The next stages will be to look at older GB, and then Commonwealth and Foreign.  

If you have any particular interests in stamps, cards, postal history and oddities, worldwide, please do ask as this takes up far more space at present than the core collections that I want to keep.

So as we are once again under the influence of cold and wet weather, time to settle down with your albums, stock-books and catalogues, and enjoy your collections.

A Happy New Year to all our readers.

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