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Friday, 28 July 2017

The new national Postal Museum has opened!

In 1998 we lost the National Postal Museum at London's King Edward Building.  After some years in the wilderness the limited-scope British Postal Museum and Archive opened, was nearly relocated to Swindon, but today the totally new Postal Museum is open to the public.  For some reason they chose not to use the original title, although that would have made sense as the country has at least one other postal museum, in Bath.

Thanks to Chris we can show one of the first day covers sold to mark the opening, bearing the five different Post and Go stamps available, with the various additional inscriptions - some with the year and some without.  Note that although 28 July is the official opening day, the Post and Go machine was available on 25 July to enable collectors and dealers to buy their stamps in advance of the very busy opening day.  The first day cover is therefore dates 25 July - and the stamps are cancelled with the new Postal Museum permanent postmark.


Coincidentally, as Bath played such a dominant role in developing the nation's postal service, Nick has sent a scan of a slogan postmark applied yesterday for delivery today, which marks the opening of the new Postal Museum.  This is from Bath and is cancelled at the Bristol Mail Centre covering Bath, Bristol, Gloucester and Taunton postcode areas.  (I'll add this to the July slogan post as well, for completeness.)

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4 comments:

  1. My Football Facts and Stats28 July 2017 at 16:12

    Not a great deal of space left to add an address if you wanted one, is there?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous29 July 2017 at 07:20

    The formal opening on the 28th was featured on local tv news. It was a pity that they did not explain that the actual railway and those exhibits are not currently open to the public. Anyone going along as a result will clearly be disappointed. The reporter was seen riding on the trains and having the interactive display explained. Similarly, it appears that advance tickets for when the railway is operational for the public are selling fast. The pre-view day (on the Wednesday) was well attended and quite busy during the morning. The young lady looking after the Post & Go machine did a sterling job and took the initiative to hand out 'numbered tickets' for those queuing. This allowed us to sit in the adjacent restaurant area without fear of loosing our place. Doug (Enfield)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brian M29 July 2017 at 09:05

      I also saw the feature on the London News on Friday evening and thought the same as Doug. What a pity they did not show a bit of the main museum which was open instead of the Mail Rail which does not open to the public until September.
      The preview day on Tuesday appeared to be well attended by Post & Go collectors and as Doug also says the young lady looking after the Post & Go machine did a sterling job as she always does. The parts of the Museum that I saw looked very good and most interesting.

      Delete
  3. Chris17 August 2017 at 09:23

    All change again on 13/09/2015

    http://iarroyalmailpostandgo.com/latestnews/new-post-go-stamps-postal-museum/

    ReplyDelete

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