Postal Museum Post and Go News for Stampex

The always reliable and entertaining Commonwealth Stamps Opinion blog reports that Post and Go machine at The Postal Museum in London will be dispensing the Mail by Air stamps with a special additional inscription 'Airmail 1919'.

 
(Postal Museum mock-up which shows a 2016 datastring!)

The 'overprint' marks the centenary of several Airmail “firsts” in 1919 – the RAF flights to Cologne, the first flight across the Atlantic, the first flight to Paris and the pioneer flight to Australia.  The new stamps will be available from 11 September, ie the first day of Autumn Stampex.  Limited to 300 the pack costs £18 for 6 x 1st class stamps (face £4.20); the FDC is only £11.

As the author writes:  Now that Royal Mail Post and Go issues are much less frequent than in recent years I find this to be an appealing issue and of interest due to the postal history anniversaries commemorated by it.

Update 16 September:
As with earlier museum reissues, this one has brought a new set of stamps in more ways than one.  MC writes:

My TPM official FDC & Pack have stamps with the '17' code whilst my output from the kiosk during a transaction timed at 10.53 is '19' year coded. So the changeover must have occurred much earlier in the morning, or even before that. I had to wait at least 20 minutes to access the kiosk as the chap on it when I arrived (a suspected foreign dealer?) was ordering loads and holding up the 4 of us waiting, who all turned out to have very limited needs! So, whilst I was there, there were no roll changes.

I suspect the stamps in the FDC and pack were printed some time ago, in order for the FDCs to be processed and made available on the day of issue.  As we know, the date and time on the machines can be set to any required date, so 'fixing' it to show the date of issue is simple.  (But see below.)

Thanks to CFN for this picture of the R19YAL reprint with the actual font and datastring:

 

.. and for this earlier R17YAL version.  

UPDATE 17 September: Most importantly, BR points out that stamps carrying the  R19YAL were digitally printed, as you can see by comparing the two side-by-side.  Comparing the images above doesn't work, because they were scanned at different times, but I think they show differences as the earlier digital printings did.



Further update: Stuart Leigh (Post and Go Checklist author) clarifies that "Early on the first day at the Postal Museum R17YAL were being dispensed from the kiosk."


 
As usual this is posted for information only, we shall not be stocking these stamps.

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