"Royal Mail is pleased to announce that Post and Go machines will be installed into two new Royal Navy museums. HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool and HMS Caroline in Belfast will have machines A006 and A008 respectively.
The machines will go live from 1 June 2016 vending Union Flag and Machin stamps. The static identifier will be ‘Royal Navy’ and stamps will also carry the ‘Battle of Jutland’ underprint* in line with all other Royal Navy sites.
The underprint* will run until 30 June."
* ie, the additional inscription
UPDATE: HMS Caroline 1st class Machin - more details later in a June post.
Noooo....where will it all end ? That's it for me. Post & gone.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, Royal Mail are, at long last, trying to place machines in other parts of the UK, allowing collectors to get P&G stamps closer to home. If I am reading the press release correctly the stamps will be exactly as those (including overprints) as the ones from NMRN - the identifier being 'ROYAL NAVY'. OK the datastring will include A002, A006 or A008, but I don't know anyone that collects from every different NCR machine - Stuart
ReplyDeleteIt is pleasing to know that both HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool and HMS Caroline in Belfast have sufficient visitor numbers to make the placement of the machines worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteShame they couldn't get the machine up and running a day earlier in Belfast given the events at HMS Caroline on 31st July (Battle of Jutland anniversary).
ReplyDelete1 June, Graham. Did you mean 31 May?
DeleteHMS Caroline (in Belfast) has been undergoing restoration, in order to become an exhibit/visitor attraction/museum open to the public. It is due to welcome its first public visitors at 10:00 am on 1st June (which I'm told is the centenary of the end of the Battle of Jutland).
ReplyDeleteHi John,
ReplyDeleteYes, unless something has changed that I've missed, the official commemorative events for BoJ are on 31st July and this includes HMS Caroline. Just checked the Navy's website for any updates and couldn't see any.
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/events/national/160531-battle-of-jutland-centenary
When we first thought about organising some BoJ covers some months back we decided on HMS Caroline as the subject to feature and then having a Belfast postmark dated 31st May. This is why I happened to know they were holding the first official event on the new museum ship that day.
Needless to say we've abandoned doing the planned cover now as the arrival of yet another Post & Go variety the following day will likely cause this kind of confusion and prove more hassle than it's worth.
A correspondent has suggested that one new thing in the HMS Caroline stamps is that the datastring should have the international identifier 'UK' instead of 'GB'.
ReplyDeleteI think he's wrong; GB or GBR is the identifier used to represent the United Kingdom in so many fields (Olympics, for example), that only a die-hard would complain about the use of GB - but don't be surprised if they do!
Interesting thought. I suppose they could have used "UK" as the identifier from the outset.
ReplyDeleteI'd laugh if Northern Ireland got its own identifier as it would probably only take a nano second before the Welsh and Scots kicked off. That would create more new Post & Go varieties to keep eBay in business until Price George is on the throne!
The UK’s ISO alpha-2 code is GB
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/countrycodes/countrycodes_u.htm
The entry from the UPU re the UK's code confirming the above
Deletehttp://www.upu.int/nc/en/the-upu/member-countries/western-europe/great-britain.html?sword_list[0]=iso&sword_list[1]=great&sword_list[2]=britain.
The UPU's site is a mine of information if you have a few hours to kill
Have you received confirmation that the HMS Caroline machine has gone on line?
ReplyDelete