Thursday 14 January 2016

Royal Mail Transport Post and Go at Spring Stampex 2016

Somewhat earlier than in previous years Royal Mail have announced the Post and Go availability for Spring Stampex, to be held at Islington's Business Design Centre from 17-20 February 2016.  

As announced earlier here and in more detail on our website the Royal Mail issue ties in with their
celebration of 500 years of the Royal Mail.  In addition to the set of six transport-themed Faststamps, a single-design roll depicting the steam locomotive will also be available. As with the Hong Kong sea front stamp, this will be digitally printed so quite different to the gravure-printed set of 6 available at Post Office branches. There has been no announcement as to whether any of the new stamps will be available at Royal Mail enquiry offices.

It seems more than likely that this will also make an appearance at the Steam GWR Museum in Swindon which is celebrating the 175th anniversary of the GWR works at Swindon in November.

The Stampex machine line-up will be
UPDATED: see this wholesale revision 22.1.16


Reel A
Reel B
A011
RM Heritage
Machin*
A012
RM Heritage
Machin*
A013
RM Heritage
Locomotive
JE01
Jersey Crest
Jersey Flag**
GG01
Bailiwick Life
Guernsey Flag**
GI01
TBC
TBC

*Additional inscription: ‘500 Years of Royal Mail’  
** Additional inscription: ‘500 Years of Postal History’

Jersey Post is taking the opportunity to issue a new design showing the Jersey Crest in various colours, and Guernsey Post is issuing a new 6-design set entitled Guernsey Life, which is wild animals.  Click on the country name to see the press releases on the IAR website.  One thing which is odd about the Guernsey statement is that each of the designs is allocated a 'value', eg the Blond Hedgehog is identified as being on the UK Large Letter stamp, but I would have expected it to be possible on the island and maybe at Stampex to produce any stamp with any denomination. 

The Royal Mail stamps from machine B001 are all available to pre-order via the IAR website although the Stampex event page doesn't yet have any details of the stamps available.

To avoid carrying excess stocks in a declining market, I am not planning to carry any stocks of Post and Go stamps from the public-access machines.  We will have limited supplies of single 1st class Machins and 1st class Locomotives from the B001 machine.


9 comments:

  1. Ian

    Curiously the Pre-order form does not permit the ordering of 1st Class Strips for Lovcomotive or Machins only Royal Mail Heritage. Have you cornered the market?!
    Have queried it with IAR

    john Embrey

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have now received a reply from Royal Mail confirming they will not be available for pre-order. Not clear if they will be available on STAMPEX m/cs or why they are able to supply Postal Heritage 1st class strips on pre-order

      John Embrey

      Delete
    2. I received the same reply, justified on the grounds that they were a single-design roll. As I pointed out, many people collect only single 1st class stamps.

      They should be available from the public access machines because (in theory) you can buy any combination on those machines.

      Delete
    3. And in an email immediately following notification of your reply, John, I had this:

      "Please note that the Spring Stampex Pre Order Post & Go Link will be updated to include the 6 x 1st Machin & the 6 x 1st Locomotives Strips. "

      Delete
  2. I see now on IAR website that the machines at Stampex will be A006, A008 and A009. This is different to what is listed above. Has anything been confirmed yet?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Frankly my dear......! I don't, really I don't. My information came from Royal Mail. That doesn't mean that it is right, of course.

      The IAR site has information for each kiosk as well as each event. They are rarely in sync: according to the Kiosk pages A006 and A008 are due to go to Perth, A009 has NO 'upcoming events'. None of these is due to go to Stampex.

      Make of it what you will, and buy from whatever machines are there. It doesn't make a jot of difference anyway; all the stamps are new and if IAR can't maintain an efficient website which has consistent and accurate information why should I bother to report anything other than official Royal Mail information?

      Delete
    2. You are right Ian to just report the information that Royal Mail tell you. After all this should be correct.
      I need not worry about it because as you say all the stamps are new so the machine number does not matter.

      Delete
  3. Royal Mail have announced (what we had already guessed) that the TPO label will be available from STEAM together with a new inscription.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I tried to get some of the new issues from the machine at Walthamstow PO on Friday, naively expecting they might have it, two days after release. Both machines were dispensing Machins, and when I asked the staff, was told that "the machines never do special stamps, you have to go to the counter". Is this a common experience?

    ReplyDelete

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