Isle of Man Postage Paid and Safe to Fly.

I hope everybody has had a good weekend, even if it isn't much different from the rest of the week.

While doing some clearing out I found a packet from the Isle of Man.  At first I thought that the grey background text had badly faded, but now I realise that it is much like a watermark and is just a background tex.  Despite being over 6 years old the main text, especially the bold value, is still readable.

I hadn't realised previously that this type of Isle of Man postage label is valid for 90 days: I guess most are used on the day of purchase.  Pictorial ones are better, but these are still valid for a collection.
UPDATE 18 May:
My thanks to JM in Germany who writes:

The first kiosks were taken in use in August 2010 and this kind of 90 days valid stamp was available until 2017. Then the kiosks were modified in order to be able to sell the new triskelen post & go stamps.

 (See 2017 Blogpost.)


Also eminently collectable is this circular sticker which is on the same piece.  These will generally applied to packets & parcels rather than letters, so are unlikely to be retained on whole cover.

I don't know whether these are still in use - with postal authorities following airline guidance on what can and can't be carried in the mails, I assume there must be something similar indicating that the contents of the package are 'Safe to Fly'.

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