Wednesday 8 April 2020

75th Anniversary End of the Second World War - 8 May 2020

60th Anniversary miniature sheet
As announced in the annual stamp programme, a set of stamps and other products will be issued on 8 May 2020 which is the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day - VE-Day.

Even though the present circumstances mean that nationwide celebrations will be on hold, probably until August and the anniversary of Victory over Japan, Royal Mail is at present going ahead with this issue which was originally timed to coincide with the week of the London 2020 International Exhibition.  Even though the day of issue is a public holiday when most businesses and post offices would have been closed anyway, that remains the plan.

Although we cannot yet show you any pictures - they will be on cover producers' websites and other blogs from Friday 24 April - details of the products in this issue have been published in Royal Mail's April Philatelic Bulletin.  I can say that the stamps are a lot better than the 60th anniversary issue shown above which contained no new stamps.

Products

A set of 8 stamps, 2 each second class, 1st class, £1.42 and £1.63.

A miniature sheet - 2 x 1st class, 2 x £1.63

A prestige stamp book containing the same stamps in different se-tenant combinations (except the MS stamps which will be in the same format but with a different background), and a pane of Machin definitives: 4 @ 5p, 2 @ 50p, and 2 @ £1.63.  These must surely be coded M20L and so will provide three new stamps.  For dealers it will be two sets with only 10p-worth of stamps left over to use as postage.

There will be the usual presentation pack, stamp cards (13), first day covers x3, and a press sheet containing 14 miniature sheets (must be 2 columns of 7), and several coin covers.




8 comments:

  1. The charge on my invoice says £20.25 one of the most expensive Prestige Booklets yet, although I guess that includes postage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The face value of the PSB is £17.94, so looks as thought the cost of the PSB will be £19.80.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I make the face value £18.16 with £1.64 added to this for the complete book.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brian wins! I suspect some of us may not have caught up with the tariff increase.

      Set of stamps £8.92 - miniature sheet £4.78 - Machin pane £4.46 = £18.16

      And your prize, Brian, is..... ?

      Delete
    2. I forgot to ask but what was my prize?

      Delete
    3. Kudos, my friend: the knowledge that you have helped other people.

      But come York next January/July, I'll get you a drink.

      Delete
  4. A placeholder for this issue has now appeared at https://shop.royalmail.com/special-stamp-issues. You can just about see what the stamps will look like (assuming their artwork is accurate).

    John

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It looks as if someone at RM "jumped the gun" (clearly I did as well!)- it's now been removed.

      John

      Delete

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