SPS Annual Congress at Perth: Post and Go arrangements.

The following details have been provided by the organisers of the Scottish Philatelic Societies' Annual Congress in Perth.  Two innovations make things interesting and more complex.  Stamp dealers have been notified of arrangements for pre-ordering from Royal Mail, the stamps being printed on machine B001 and B002, and Jersey Post will attend for the first time but with their stamps will not have also carrying the Perth Congress caption.

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The Annual Congress of the Scottish Philatelic Societies at Perth on 11-12 April 2014 will again have new items of interest to collectors.   For the first time Jersey Philatelic Bureau will be attending Congress with Post and Go machine J001.  This will print stamps with the Jersey flag and with the Union flag – both with the Congress overprint. For those not attending Congress details of ordering Jersey Post materials will appear on www.jerseystamps.com and orders for Jersey materials must be sent to the Jersey Philatelic Bureau. (See below *)

Post and Go Machines numbers A003 and A004 will be used at Congress for both Machin and Union Flag stamps. Congress overprints will be available from both machines for strips of six of each of 1st class (£3.72), 1st Large (£5.58) Europe 20g (£5.82) and 60g (£8.82) and Worldwide 20g (£7.68) and 60g (£12.90). The Collector’s Strip is £7.42.

Similar stamps will be issued by back of office machines B001 and B002.

Also available are two Souvenir Smiler Sheets, one with the Union Flag and one with the Scottish Saltire flag, the latter having a Scottish Postal History and Perth Lamb image alongside each stamp. The background will feature the badges of the Scottish battalions that fought in Wold War I. Designs are being finalised. The sheets will each cost £10.20 (A5) and £18.65 (A4).

Unless otherwise requested, orders may be made up using stamps from machines B001 and B002.

All items are charged at cost plus postage and packing as detailed below.

POSTAGE and PACKING

UK		Europe		Rest of World
Up to 5 items	Over 5 items	Up to 5 items	Over 5 items	Up to 5 items	Over 5 items
£3	£6	£6	£8	£8	£12
Special Delivery up to value of £1000: £10 extra £2500: £15 extra		International signed for up to value of £500: £15 extra

Purchasers will be advised if the weight of their order exceeds the above costs and additional payment is required.

Special posting requests for all the above items will be costed and purchasers advised prior to sending the items.

Please note that orders (or total of multiple orders) exceeding £500 will be subject to a surcharge of 10% of the total cost.  Update 17 March 2014: ASPS have changed this today: orders over £100 now are subject to a surcharge of 10%.  The total cost of a £100-face order paid by PayPal is now over £121.

PayPal account: dundeephilatelic@btinternet.com

PayPal surcharge on all orders: 4% of total order

Cheques/Postal orders in sterling should be made payable to ‘ASPS’

Orders should be sent to

Colin G Campbell, 11 Denoon Terrace, Dundee DD2 2EL, Scotland, UK

or to dundeephilatelic@btinternet.com

Commemorative cover and postcard:

All requests regarding commemorative covers featuring Gleneagles Hotel and golf course and/or postcards, with badges of Scottish battalions that fought in Wold War I, should be made to Alan Wishart at at.wishart@btopenworld.com

These items and more information on the ASPS Congress can be viewed at www.scottishphilately.homestead.com

* UPDATE 12 March
Two points on Jersey: the stamps will not have the Perth Congress caption.  Jersey Post will only take orders for stamps from the B machine.  So the Congress organisers will now take orders for stamps from the J machine under these terms:

Costs (including VAT that is payable on Jersey stamps) are as follows. 
Postage and packing costs are the same as above.

Collectors Strip: £4.75

Cost of strips of 6 stamps

Local letter: : £3.24

UK Letter: £3.96

Europe: £4.32

Local Large: £4.92

UK Large: £6.36

International letter: £5.76

[Some errors have been corrected: Norvic Philatelics takes no responsibility for any not picked up!]

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So although Jersey Post has not yet installed one of these machines in a Post Office branch or any other location on the island, they are now going down the road of adding to collectables made especially for collectors.  Not a wise move and likely to deter collectors from buying their products (and those of Guernsey should they ever join the Post and Go club).

Although not stated, I presume the Jersey machine in Perth will be dispensing both Jersey and Union Flag stamps. Collectors will want at least the Union Flag and possibly the Jersey stamps from the J machine, which the organisers are not offering.  It remains to be seen whether Jersey Post is offering both those and the B machine stamps: their website is so far silent on the matter.

What was originally a Royal Mail souvenir for collectors visiting the event was always going to be a problem when the organisers made arrangements to supply collectors (something I asked for as I didn't want to be inundated with requests to get these stamps - Perth is not 'nearby' after all!).

With UK and continental dealers requiring hundreds or thousands of sets in diffierent combinations the organisers will have had a problem dealing with the orders and have (correctly in my view) decided to capitalise on this demand by ensuring that their servicing fees more than cover simply the face value and cost of postage.

Pre-order machine.  When the stamp trade was told about the pre-ordering facility it was to be for local payment and collection at the show only (which was fairly pointless as if I we couldn't get to the show to get the stamps from the machines, we couldn't get them from the pre-order facility either!).

It makes sense, of course, for the Congress organisers to take advantage of this to fill as many orders as possible with pre-printed stamps rather than stamps dispensed from the machines actually at Perth.  But if Stampex is anything to go by, collectors (and therefore dealers) will want stamps from both the B machine/s and the A machines.

It remains to be seen whether the organisers are busier because colletors want both or less busy because they want none!

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