Sunday, 19 January 2020

London 2020: Royal Mail's Last Exhibition Sheet, and a retail booklet

According to the latest Royal Mail Stocklist, they will produce for the London 2020 exhibition the last 'Exhibition Sheet'.

I think this means the last Generic/Smilers Exhibition Sheet, rather than the last overprinted limited edition souvenir which has been the feature of recent Stampex events, to the annoyance of those who can't attend.



Generic/Smilers sheets such as the one shown above have been produced for many international philatelic exhibitions in the UK and abroad since Hong Kong in 2004.  Each one features the Hello greetings stamp first issued in the Greetings set of 2002, until LS72 when the sheets were printed on self-adhesive paper using the definitive-sized Hello stamp.

Unlike other Smilers sheets these contain no new stamps, apart from the occasional change of printer, perforation or phosphor, so I can imagine that they have had decreasing appeal over the last few years.

The new Stocklist from Royal Mail also shows a retail booklet being issued for London 2020 on 10 March 2020.

Full list of Exhibition Sheets with SG numbers

LS17   Hong Kong Stamp Expo   Walsall p14½
LS24   Pacific Explorer 2005        Walsall p14
LS30   Washington 2006               Cartor   p14
LS36   Belgica 2006            
LS48   Beijing 2008            
LS64   Thaipex 09               
LS66    Italia 2009
LS69    Monacophil 2009
LS72    London 2010 Festival of Stamps - Cartor, self-adhesive p 15 x 14, definitive size Hello
LS76    Indipex New Delhi (2011)
LS77    Philanippon 11, Yokohama
LS81    Indonesia 2012, Jakarta
LS86    Australia 2013, Melbourne
LS87    Bangkok 2013, Thailand
LS92    Kuala Lumpur 2014, Malaysia
LS95    Europhilex London 2015
LS100  New York World Stamp Show (2016)
LS105  Finlandia 2017 European Stamp Exhibition, Tampere
----       Stockholmia 2019 

Another reason for the output reduction in recent years (after the excess of 2009-2013) is that Royal Mail is attending fewer overseas events. Maybe the decision to cease these rather pointless sheets is a fall out from that.

6 comments:

  1. You have forgotten the Stockholmia 2019 Exhibition’ generic sheet which was issued on 29 May 2019

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. There is so little interest in these that I think I omitted to mention it in the blog at all.

      Delete
  2. Ian, You say that the latest stocklist lists a retail book being issued for London 2020 on March 10th, but I can't find it listed in my copy of the stocklist. What page is it on please ? I presume that this is the London 2020 Victoria heads book shown on the back page of the stocklist. I don't collect limited edition, overprinted Stampex souvenirs, but I would most certainly want this book, as I'm sure many other collectors would. Will Tallents House be issuing it to their standing order customers I wonder ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you have standard 6x 1st booklets on SO, then yes, they should supply.

      I haven’t had the Stock List, I’m acting on reports.

      Delete
    2. The information is on page 18, as part of the section on London 2020. There is also a picture of it on the outside back cover. It is not listed in the main section of the Stocklist (and so can't yet be ordered).

      Delete
    3. For those of you who haven't had the January Stocklist through the post, it is now available as a PDF from the RM website on the page https://www.royalmail.com/sending/stamps

      Delete

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