Royal Mail have provided some preliminary details of the Paralympic Gold Medal stamps. Designs are not yet available but will be launched on 29 August.
"Each miniature sheet will comprise of
two identical 1st Class stamps featuring the UK Gold Paralympic Medal
winning athlete or team. The stamps will use the same design format
that was created for the Olympic Gold Medal Winner stamps issued
after the Team GB medal winning events during the London Olympic
Games, only with the Paralympic logo substituted for the Olympic
logo. Each stamp will bear the athlete/team’s name and the name of
the event. The format was created by Manchester based design
consultancy True North.
"The medal winner’s image will be
dropped into the format and the artwork sent to the printers with the
objective of having the Gold Medal Winners Miniature sheets on sale
at the 518 Post Offices that received the overnight distribution of
the Olympic Gold Medal Winners stamps as soon as possible with a
wider distribution to a network of 4700 offices later.
"A4 Sheet – Printer Varieties
A4 sheets from each of the 6 regional
printers will be available to order from Tallents House. Each A4
sheet will feature 8 minisheets; 2 each of 4 Gold Medal Winners.
Price £9.60."
This does, of course, mean that those people who collected A4 sheets will find them cheaper, not only because there are fewer stamps, but because there will be 4 medals per sheet, rather than 1. So instead of a sheet costing £14.40 for each medal, it will cost £9.60 for 4 medals. (I hope they have thought through the situation where the total number of medals is not divisible by 4!)
Miniature sheet image:
The first day cover is expected to be similar to this:
UPDATE: Royal Mail have placed a Gold Medal FAQ on their website. Key additional information on the Paralympics Gold Medal Stamps is:
Q: What discount may I receive on ParalympicsGB Gold Medal stamps?
A: We will shortly write to our customers and this will give details of the offers.
Q: Will A4 printers sheets be available for the ParalympicsGB Gold Medal Winners stamps like they were for the Olympic Winners?
A: Yes, the A4 sheets will be available direct from Royal Mail Tallents House after the end of the games.
Q: When are the ParalympicsGB Gold Medal stamps issued?
A: There will be four issue dates – 1st September, 4th September, 7th September and 11th September ***
Q: Which Post Offices will sell the stamps?
A: The Post Offices that sold the Olympic Gold Medal Winners stamps will be receiving the ParalympicsGB Gold Medal stamps.
Q: Will Post Offices open on a Sunday to sell these stamps?UPDATE - Royal Mail's website has been updated and the Paralympic GMW sheets can now be ordered here http://tiny.cc/rm_para_gmws
A: As there will be no stamp issue dates on a Sunday, the Post Offices will not open that day.
Q: Will there be an album produced to house the stamps?
A: Yes, there will be an album designed specifically for both Olympic and Paralympic Gold Medal Winner stamps and we will have this available in approximately four weeks.
*** Update pm Wednesday. On twitter, @RoyalMailstamps have said that the stamps will be on sale from Friday, which is 31st August - seeking clarification!! Corrected: images available Friday, in branches from Saturday 1st September.
Hi Ian, Thanks for the latest update.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like RM will be issuing an album of some form to house both Olympic and Paralympic editions as just read on the following RM Q and A page;
Quote from page:
Q: Will there be an album produced to house the stamps?
A: Yes, there will be an album designed specifically for both Olympic and Paralympic Gold Medal Winner stamps and we will have this available in approximately four weeks.
http://shop.royalmail.com/gold-medal-stamps-faqs/page/subscriptions/
Cheers
John
I would like to know what Royal Mail intends doing with the Olympic and Paralympic Gold Medal Winners stamps in their annual De Luxe stamp album supplement pages for 2012 before investing in other display options.
ReplyDeleteWill they be including them on miniature sheet pages or do they intend to just have a space for a single stamp for each design?
Let us know when you get an answer from them.
DeleteA key question for me is whether Royal Mail will be offering a discount on the new album for anyone who paid for the ill thought out (and much criticised) Gold Medal Winners Compendium?
ReplyDeleteJust noticed the Royal Mail have updated their Gold Medal Winners page. It appears the size of the miniature sheet is smaller than expected and will be exactly like the Team GB ones except with only 2 stamps. The postmark for the FDC looks the same too. Any ideas why?
ReplyDeletePlease point me to this page - they have so many pages on their website and I haven't seen this one yet (nor have we had our order forms!)
DeleteThe mini-sheet image and probable FDC image are shown above. I'm not sure how what you are reading at Royal Mail is any different from what I originally wrote (in bold!!) in the blogpost:
"Each A4 sheet will feature 8 minisheets; 2 each of 4 Gold Medal Winners. Price £9.60."
If there are 8 sheets to an A4 sheet instead of 4 as with the Olympics, they must be half the size?
The page I was looking at was
Delete"http://shop.royalmail.com/the-london-2012-olympic-and-paralympic-games/paralympicsgb+team-gb-gold-medal-winners-collection/icat/goldmedalstamps/".
I was only saying that on your website, the size you put was the same as the olympic ones, but it is actually a lot smaller, but I can see your point and I was clearly not paying attention to that part of the writing.
Thanks for that. Couldn't find it by searching their site!
DeleteThe situation regarding these stamps, and a lot of things at the moment, is very fluid and changes almost daily. As a result it is more than likely that the information shown on one blogpost may differ from another post, and from the website itself! I appreciate that this can be confusing and I apologise for the differences and errors.
As you will appreciate from this post and some of the others, much of the information comes from Royal Mail, but much of it also comes from collectors and dealers, and maybe from some people inside Royal Mail or Post Office Ltd - anonymous comments are just that.
The original idea for a gold medal mini-sheet for all Paralympian gold medal winners was for a single MS, with 6 stamps (as for the Olympics) but the stamps would be 6 different ones, between them showing all Paralympian GMWs. That was always going to make for a crowded set of images - given that some might be TEAM GMWs. 42 gold medal winners in Beijing - 56 names listed on wikipedia, though some of those were multiple GMWs - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain_at_the_2008_Summer_Paralympics
The more you look at it, the more it seems that the original proposal was unlikely to produce a good result!
Thanks for that. I look forward to seeing if the first gold medal winner sticks to today's design!
DeleteAnd in addition, it looks like the more the Royal Mail change their website, the less they're publicing themselves!
DeleteAny ideas what this discount is yet not holding my breath on a letter anytime soon my gold stamp sheets would be good too!
ReplyDeleteDetails still awaited on discount.
DeleteDid you order gold medal stamps from us? If not, RM should have written to you by now, others have reported that they have had letter from RM with details of cost for you to agree.
Hi all, as we sit ready waiting for the Paralympic opening ceremony, sherry in hand! A thought regarding 'completist' collectors has just occurred.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like there will be a pair of mini sheets per strip on the A4 sheet. So does this mean that there will be a combination of selvage left and selvage right variations on each strip?
Expensive!
As I sit, still cutting up Olympic GM miniature sheets into singles, listening to Rigor Mortis on Radio 4 extra, the answer is no.
DeleteThe selvage will be on the left as before, with additional rouletting vertically to divide the two miniature sheets. You could, however, create "gutter pairs" of the right-hand stamp from the left-hand sheet and vice-versa....
I was late ordering we had already won 15 medals, I recieved an invoice of sorts with an amount but the money has already come out my bank so I thought it was just a receipt of the order which I have recieved separate to previous orders with rm. that arrived Saturday so I was anticipating them this week at some point. I know they said by 5th sept all Would be dispatched but thought they'd be here quicker than that
ReplyDeleteQuestion: On the Royal Mail shop site, it says there is a Team GB album to keep MS's and FDC's in but I don't know if it includes the Paralympic ones. Is there going to be a seperate album?
ReplyDeleteI spoke to royal Mail today. They say that a letter (with order form?) will be sent to all GMW Olympic customers. It will include information about discounts as were offered for the GMW Olympics. It is not known yet when this letter will be sent out
ReplyDeleteI'm really confused! You today released that changes have been made and I don't know if this will mean anything to my subscription of FDCs!
ReplyDeleteQuestion - will we be able to submit covers up to 28th September like the real olympics stamps?
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe the date is 8 October if you don't put them over the PO counter.
Delete