Sunday 5 February 2012

Jubilee definitives Part 2, and change for 50p - but not yet!

With the Diamond Jubilee MS and 1st class definitive (in its various forms) being issued tomorrow, we can now confirm that the Large Letter versions - counter sheet, business sheet and booklet of 4 - will be issued on Tuesday 27 March. 

On the same date the 50p Machin definitive issued on 17 February 2009 in grey will be replaced by a new stamp in 'rust', a colour which has been used before.  No reason for this change has been announced.  It is close in colour to the diamond blue 1st class but not, I would have thought, close enough to warrant a change.


An informed source has said that this will have a single phosphor band,

A more informed source has now said that there will be no change to the 50p colour during 2012, but the colour may change next year.

Another source has said that at the end of this year the diamond-blue 1st class will be changed to post-office red.  Does this mean more colour changes - and for what purpose?*

At this time the new postage rates have not been announced, and they are unlikely to be announced until near the end of this month, for implementation at the end of April or in early May, so this colour change would not seem to be caused by the tariff change.  We'll publish the official explanation when we get it.

The 50p grey has not so far been reprinted in 2010/11 and so only exists from counter sheets with no year code.


3 comments:

  1. This comment is solely to alert subscribers to the fact that this blog post has changed three times since originally posted: twice in the last hour!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The 50p grey was included in the King George V prestige booklet issued in 2010. The stamp has year code MA10 and source code MPIL.

    --Larry

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True, but from counter sheets it is so far still on the 2009 printing.
      Actually it's difficult to word that into the original post any other way to get the same meaning!


      "The 50p grey has not so far been reprinted in 2010/11 and so from counter sheets only exists with no year code."

      That would have been better: it's what I meant :-D
      Thanks Larry!

      Delete

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