Wednesday 5 September 2018

New Walsall printings in time for Stampex - probably.

As announced back in the summer, four new Walsall-printed counter-sheet stamps are due to be available at Stampex.  We have ordered these from Tallents House for supply to customers and they will be available on our e-commmerce site soon.

So far we have received only the 2nd class Large and a single sheet of the 2p, which we have been selling for some time, but which I ordered in case there was something different about it.  Well there is!  As shown below, the printing date on this sheet is 08/05/18 - all the stock we have had so far was printed on 09/02/18.  This single sheet does seem to be a slightly lighter shade than the others we have, but not significantly different.

The 2nd class Large was printed on 14/02/18 - which is odd, because based on usage and existing 2014 stocks in some Post Office branches, that is the last stamp we would have expected to see reprinted.  The need for this must come from stock being sold by Royal Mail through their website and wholesale network.

 


The 5p was printed on 09/02/18, as was the 2p first printing, the 10p, 20p and £1.  The 2nd class Large was printed on 14 February, the same date as the 2nd, 1st and 1st Large.  Was it really needed? Obviously not as urgently as the others which have been listed on the Tallents House definitive stock list some time ago.

So where have the 5p & 2nd Large been all this time?  Did Royal Mail really ask Walsall to print these stamps seven months ago and then keep them in a warehouse?   Nobody has reported them from any other source - maybe we should periodically order from Royal Mail's business-user website just to see what we get.

 

First supplies of the 1p have now arrived, printed on 09/05/18 - again, they must have been in a Royal Mail warehouse somewhere, so it's surprising that it took so long to find them that these new stamps couldn't all be despatched together!




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