Designed by Kate Stephens using illustrations by award-winning Bath artist Julia Trickey, the six stamps show forget-me-not, common poppy, dog rose, spear thistle, heather and cultivated flax.
The forget-me-not is a common flower in cottage gardens, and grows wild if allowed to!
Common Poppies are widespread in the countryside notable along verges and in cornfields here in Norfolk, where we have Poppyland (an area near Cromer named in the 19th century by author Clement Scott), the 'Poppy Line' or North Norfolk Railway, and a Poppyland brewery.
The Dog Rose is widespread in roadside hedges, and even climing up into higher branches of trees.
Spear Thistle (or common thistle) has a purple flower atop a swollen, spiny green base and spear-like tips on the leaves. Its flowers provide a feast of nectar and pollen for insects in late summer.
Heather is widespread in moorland parts of Britain including the Pennines and Scotland.
Cultivated Flax has been grown for centuries for making cloth and linseed oil, traditionally used to finish and refresh cricket bats. Now included in commercially available wild bird seed, it is often seen in gardens.
I'm pleased to say that we have all except the thistle and heather here at Norvic towers!
First day covers and presentation packs will be available as usual.
* The stamps in post office branches will be dispensed from Wincor-Nixdorf and NCR machines while those at Stampex will provide a third version.
With Wincor-Nixdorf machines dispensing 'Europe' up to 20g and NCR Machines issuing 'Euro 20g / World 10g' there are 7 values to look for instead of the usual 6..
ReplyDeleteInteresting point.
DeleteIf you only collect Machins, and ignore the machine that printed them, there are already 9 different service indicators!
Better make it four different printing varieties: if the sets inserted into the presentation packs are still printed by the C1/C2 (Hytech) printers, these will differ from those by the WincorNixdorf, NCR and Fujitsu-Kiosks
ReplyDeleteYes, those in the pack will be from what are referred to as the IAR C001 or C002 machines (as with the new Open Value presentation pack). (But of course they will only be 1st class.)
DeleteThere are 2nd class variants of the symbolic flowers set available at Trafalgar Square as of 10.30am this morning 15th July
ReplyDeleteSo this person knows that tommorrow someone will place a reel of symbolic flowers (which are not due to be issued until Sept) into the machine in the 2nd class position (where they do not fit). If it happens, which I doubt it really will kill post and go
DeleteAnd today is Monday 14th, not 15th :-)
DeleteRobert, I feel sure you mean Spring Blooms, rather than the Symbolic flowers which are not due out for another 2 months? Perhaps you can send me some pictures and I can make it a main blog item if these are indeed 2nd class Faststamps or 2nd class Open Value, at Trafalgar Square?
ReplyDeleteI attended at 1230 hrs. Only 3 machines were working out of the 4, All dispensing Machin Heads.
ReplyDeleteChris I assume it is kiosk 70 (the right hand one) that is out of service, it has been on all my previous visits there.
ReplyDeleteCorrect
DeleteThey told me the printer was completly out and not working correctly, so my guess would be 2nd class was printing on the 1st class side rather than the stamps being put on the wrong side.
ReplyDelete