Monday 20 January 2014

Stamps mark 300 years of Buckingham Palace

Stamps recording the three hundred year existence of Buckingham Palace - previously Buckingham House - will be issued on 15 April 2014.  The 6 x 1st class stamps in ordinary sheets show the exterior of the building over the centuries, and the miniature sheet and retail booklet show the opulence of the interior.

Two of the six stamps showing the exterior views:



The Miniature Sheet


The retail booklet


Technical details:

The 6 x1st class sheet stamps are 60 x 30 mm (same size as Olympic Welcome stamps) and will be in sheets of 18/36.  Printed by Cartor SP in lithography.

The miniature sheet is 115 x 74 mm with stamps 41 x 30 mm printed by Joh Enschede in lithography.

The retail booklet with 2 x Buckingham Palace stamps and 4 x 1st class red Machins is printed by Walsall Security Printers in gravure.

The Prestige Stamp Book will contain three panes each of 4 x 1st class stamps, and one pane of Machin definitives.  The last will contain 2 each of 10p and £1 stamps, and 4 x 20p (making the usual 8 stamps and a label.


The other panes:

UPDATE 14 JUNE
It's so long since stamps in a Prestige Book were different in a major way from those in sheets that there's a tendency not to check.  Fortunately the catalogue editors at Stanley Gibbons do just that, and we can confirm that the 6 x 1st class stamps in the PSB are perforated 14 x 13½, while those in counter sheets are perf 14½.  The sheet stamps are numbered 3589-94 and the PSB stamps 3589b-3594b. 





More details on our website.

UPDATE 8 APRIL

We can now show the definitive stamps from the retail booklet and the PSB:







7 comments:

  1. All first class.. should have guessed... will have to stock up on horses for my international mail. Do hope May's issue will have some international values in...

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  2. This is a very expensive issue, given all the variations on offer.
    Keeping the price down to 60p a stamp (except for the Machin PSB pane) was a sensible option from Royal Mail.

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  3. Love the set, to be honest this set works cheaper when you think about it more, its only got 6 first class stamps than the usual 10, if you include the miniature sheet it about the same price as the remarkable Lives.

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  4. Think that should be 4 x 20p in the Machin prestige pane, otherwise there'll only be six stamps....

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    Replies
    1. Indeed it should be 4 x 20p, thank you Robert. Image now added to the blog.

      Delete
  5. Without even counting regionals, there must have been around 30 Prestige booklet Machin panes containing 6 stamps - one as recently as 9 May last year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, but these are generally in addition to the usual pane of 8 Machins around a label, not in place of.

      Delete

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