Monday 18 August 2014

Interruption to our normal service

Due to the recent hospitalisation and now convalescence of a close family member there will be fewer updates here, and service from the web-shop may be slower than normal.

I will use this space to add details of what we have that you may be waiting for, with the assurance that I will send orders and reserved items out to customers as soon as possible.

1. As noted in the relevant blog posts (but not yet on the website) the Great War stamps in the prestige stamp book are not the same as those printed in counter sheets. 

The pictorial stamps issued in sheets have two phosphor bands except for the 'Starburst' painting and 'We Will Remember Them' poetry stamps, which are all-over phosphor.  We now know that all 6 pictorial stamps in the PSB have all-over phosphor which means that at least 4 will have a separate listing in some catalogues.  They are certainly different stamps and we now have them in stock.


2. First day covers of the Machin stamps from the Great War PSB, the three new booklet/business sheet stamps issued on 31 July, and the Commonwealth Games booklets will be added to the web-shop soon.

3. More Poppy Maximum cards will also be added to the web-shop in the near future.  Part of the proceeds of these will go to the Royal British Legion National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.  If you haven't been, it is a very impressive and moving place to be.


4. PHILAKOREA
We have supplies of the 'GB' codes stamps from Edinburgh, and the KR stamps have now arrived. Customers who pre-ordered have been contacted: if you have not received an email please look in your spam folder, and email me if you haven't had one.  (The image, right, shows the machine with the Philakorea screen.)

Korean stock includes Undated and MA13 Machins from two machines, Undated Union Flags from three machines including JE01, and the Jersey Flag stamps.  We also received three different covers, for these variations.  Smilers stamps are arriving soon.


5. Update 20 August.  BPMA Airmail exhibition opened today with new Post and Go stamps.  And guess what? The brown Machins exist undated and with MA13, probably not surprising, and the blue are MA12.
What is surprising is that BPMA produced a Presentation Pack as well as FDCs.  But they only had 100 Packs for sale on their website !!  Do they think that there are only 100 Post and Go collectors worldwide?  OK, so not all of them would buy it, but at £12 it wasn't expensive and I am certain they would have sold nearer to 1,000 than 100 and thus added to the funds available for the new museum.

Anyway, they are already on eBay, as are the strips of stamps.  I'll not be doing any FDCs for these and don't have any stock.


9 comments:

  1. I hope all goes well with your family member.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, and everybody else who has written. Steady progress is being made.

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  2. Re. The P&G BPMA Airmail Presentation Pack. I tried to purchase from their website last week and it stated Out of Stock. Took a look the following day and Hey Presto they were selling them again, still stating only 100 produced! It remains to be seen whether it truly was just 100 or they have forgotten (!) to revise this number.

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  3. When BPMA announced the products on Twitter on 8 August there was a picture of the Presentation Pack and it was numbered "1 of 100". They did say it was a limited edition!

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    Replies
    1. I didn't see the tweet, I was on holiday. But if I had seen it, I would have asked them THEN what they thought they were doing. They are trying to build a new museum, and they need money.

      While there are collectors willing to buy, they should be selling. You don't see Royal Mail holding back: their 'limited editions' are either very expensive or number in the 10s of thousands (or both!)

      Delete
  4. It was 100 for sale, the only time more was made avaliable was a finalising stock take when the last 2 was on sale. They sold in minutes.

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    Replies
    1. Just had this answer from BPMA:

      "Hi Ian - this was the first of its kind that we had done and we tried to ensure that it it went to collectors"

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    2. Well they didn't did they? A dealer is selling them on ebay for £125.00!!

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  5. BPMA Airmail Exhibition - Blog states that brown Machins exist with undated and with MA13. Visited on the Wednesday 27th and Machins were undated. Does this mean that MA13 were in the machine for a while and presume when exhausted the older stock (i.e. undated) then put into machine? I would have thought good stock control would have meant use up old stock first then use newer stock. Doug (Enfield)

    ReplyDelete

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