As expected Royal Mail will issue a set of stamps and associated products to mark the platinum jubilee of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, an event described not only as unparalleled in British history but also "this will be the only platinum jubilee ever celebrated in this country".
Their write-up continues
For 70 years The Queen has been the ultimate symbol of the United Kingdom, representing her subjects at home and abroad through times of great joy and sadness too. Her Jubilee is a moment to reflect on a record of duty and service admired and appreciated far beyond these shores. Her Majesty is also Queen of 15 other nations, Head of the Commonwealth and the longest serving Head of State in the world today.
Celebrations throughout 2022 will mark and celebrate this significant milestone in the life of our monarch and our country. The celebrations will span five months, from the anniversary of her accession on 6th February to the official, celebratory, long bank holiday weekend from 2nd to 5th June 2022.
The anniversary and the activity around the two key moments – in February and June – will help keep the anniversary in the public’s mind, with spikes of special interest and focus in February and again in early Summer.
Stamps
A set of 8 pictorial stamps - 4 x 1st class, 4 x £1.70 - show, predictably, Her Majesty in various situations and locations over the decades - 1957, 1966, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1999, 2005 and 2020.
1st Class:
Her Majesty The Queen during a visit to the headquarters of MI5, London, February 2020;
Her Majesty The Queen with His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh during a tour of the United States, Washington, October 1957;
Her Majesty The Queen on a walkabout in Worcester, April 1980;
Her Majesty The Queen during Trooping the Colour, London, June 1978;
£1.70:
Her Majesty The Queen after touring the Provincial Museum of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, May 2005;
Her Majesty The Queen during the Silver Jubilee celebrations, Camberwell, June 1977
Her Majesty The Queen during a tour of the West Indies, in Victoria Park, St Vincent, February 1966;
Her Majesty The Queen at the Order of the Garter ceremony in Windsor, June 1999.
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| Set of 8 stamps issued 4 February 2022 for Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee. |
Technical and Credits
Design by Kate Stephens. The 35mm square PVA-gummed stamps are printed by International Security Printers (Cartor) in litho, perf 14½ in two se-tenant strips of four.
Photo acknowledgements in order:
1st class: visit to MI5 HQ, London, 2020 © Victoria Jones/Pool/AFP/Getty Images; United States, Washington, October 1957 © Popperfoto/Getty Images; Worcester, April 1980 © Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty Images; Trooping the Colour, London, June 1978 © Anwar Hussein/Getty Images;
£1.70: Edmonton, Canada, May 2005 © Jeff McIntosh/ The Canadian Press/PA/Alamy; Camberwell, June 1977 © Graham Wiltshire/Getty Images; Victoria Park, St Vincent, February 1966 © Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2022; Windsor, June 1999 © PA/ Alamy
Prestige Stamp Book
Although there is no miniature sheet for this issue, there will of course be a prestige stamp book (the second of the year) which incorporates some previously issued stamps.
Pane 1: Machin definitives - two each 2p, 10p, 50p, £1.50. These have security codes MPIL M21L and so the £1.50 will be the only new stamp - an odd choice as it is rarely available from Post Office branches in sheet form. (* see foot of post for another Machin.)
The 2p was included in the Music
Giants V book (DY38), the 10p was included in the Music Giants V & VI and Industrial Revolutions
books (DY38/39/41), and the 50p stamp was included in the Music
Giants V & VI (DY38/41) books. The £1.50 will be included in our catalogue as 4150P.
Pane 2: two each 1st class and £1.70 stamps from this issue.
Pane 3: two 1st class from the 90th Birthday issue (SG 3827/8), and two 1st class stamps from the Diamond Jubilee issue (SG 3319B/20B). As these are almost certainly* printed by the same process and printer, with the same perforation and phosphor, they will probably not have separate catalogue numbers. [* Details awaited from Royal Mail].
Pane 4: two each 1st class and £1.70 stamps from this issue.
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| Cover of Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee PSB - 4 February 2022 |
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| Platinum Jubilee prestige stamp book with duplicated cover. |
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| Inside pages, pane 1 of Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee PSB - 4 February 2022, and cover of limited edition (1952) |
MACHIN definitives. Following this week's announcement that all Machin definitives would be replaced by stamps with datamatrix codes this is the first PSB since that announcement - and maybe the last ever - to contain Machins.
If this PSB is sold for a year or more it will cease to be sold on 3 February 2023, three days after the Machins it contains cease to be valid for postage!
Other products
First day covers (set and PSB definitive pane), presentation pack, stamp cards, limited edition PSB (quantity 1952), stamp cards.
Jointly with the Royal Mint £5 coin cover (edition of 15,000) - also available as Silver Proof, Gold Proof and (of course) Platinum priced at £92.50, £2725, and £5495 respectively in editions of 1200, 100 and 20.
Also, the set of stamps mounted and framed (£29.99), and two platinum stamps (ie coated with 0.1g of the metal) in limited editions of 500 each at £125 each.
Whatever floats your boat, and your pocket can afford!
UPDATE 9 February. Thanks to the Commonwealth Stamps Opinion blog, we can show Canada Post's Platinum Jubilee offering, which is another opportunity for Machin collectors. This design is issued as a self-adhesive stamp issued in booklets of 10 and a sheetlet containing a single, identical gummed stamp. The 'P' stamps (=permanent) pay the basic inland letter rate.
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| Stamp issued by Canada Post for HM The Queen's Platinum Jubilee |
Not very good value in the PSB, £19.50 for £3.00 worth of stamps, at least the £1.50 is totally new according to my concise !
ReplyDeleteThe £1.50 is not even in the list of stamps to be reissued with barcodes in April.
ReplyDeleteSo with no “special definitive”, such as First Class Machins in slate blue ten years ago and bright lilac for ‘Long To reign’, very few Britons will actually see Platinumum Jubilee stamps other than in the news today.
ReplyDeleteTypical cheaply printed stamps printed abroad of course and nothing on them to say why they were issued.
DeleteMudgie I think it is a very poor effort by Royal Mail, some really regal stamps would have been very colourful.
DeleteI don't think they would be any more expensive printed in the UK as these are printed in France by the same company. They are printed in litho which is cheaper than gravure because all short-runs are printed in litho.
DeleteYour second point, however, is more than justified. It's time Royal Mail started producing better captions on their stamps.
The 1978 photo is clearly a repeat of one used in June 2005 for the Trooping the Colour stamps.
DeleteNo caption avoids the risk of “Platinum Jubbly”!
I always quite liked the minimalism of a stamp with a photo of the Queen - no need for a Gillick cameo, no need for a country name. I don't mind the lack of caption either!
DeleteWhy a 2p stamp???
ReplyDeleteWhy a £1.50. One keeps the cost down, one puts it up.
DeleteI haven't spent much time on it but I don't think these in combination are good for any current service?
Ian,
DeleteIt won’t happen but the stamps in that pane could be used as
10p 10p £1.50 = £1.70 but there’s already four of them in the book
10p 10p 50p 50p £1.50 = £2.70 Second Class Large Letter to 750g
10p 10p £1.50 £1.50 = £3.20 Second Class Small Parcel to 2kg
10p 50p 50p £1.50 £1.50 = £4.10 Second Class Large Letter Signed For to 750g
10p 10p 50p 50p £1.50 £1.50 = £4.20 Second Class Small Parcel to 2kg
10p 10p 50p 50p £1.50 £1.50 = £4.20 Zones 1 to 3 Large Letter to 100G
A second book would be needed to use the 2p stamps as 2p 2p 2p 10p 50p = 66p second Clas
Then a third book would be needed to not waste a 2p stamp !
Thank you for this insight into the minds of the Royal Mail designers!
DeleteReceived letter today from RM that my standing order for the PSB has been delayed and will be dispatched after the 7th February.
ReplyDeleteI received my solitary PSB yesterday and swiftly dispatched it to France. Stock wasn't received until Wednesday, I think.
DeleteSame here. Maybe they will be a second printing with M22L year codes (or not!)
Delete'First' has no details of the PSB FDC and it is missing from the order form. Yet the PSB FDC's have arrived. It would appear that this issue has been mishandled from start to finish. PSB not in Post Offices.
DeleteMy usually reliable P.O. counter at AsDa Gravesend didn't have any PSBs on issue date but have just 'phoned me to say stocks are in and I can collect my usual two* PSBs tomorrow.
Delete* one set of panes to the standard GB collection and front-and-back of each page to the specialised PSB collection (18 albums 8-) ).
I would have begrudged paying "delivery" to RM for £40 of stamps that will never be used.
I think this is one of RM's biggest farces, no PSB, not many collectable stamps, dear oh dear :-(
ReplyDeleteI suspect there will be fewer of these sold than ever, lest people lose their money next year in the datatamatrix confusion. And we Norphil blog fans will be hastily sticking what will become worthless on letters and cards. They look like the many other royal-occasion stamps, so not worth the risk. A sad reflexion of the decline of philatel.y
ReplyDeleteWell, I haven't rushed out to buy. I may buy one or two stamps if I'm casually passing the main post office and there is no queue, and go get some more Post Awyr labels as well.
ReplyDeleteThe selection of photos is curious. There's photos from 1977, 1978 and 1980 and then nothing for almost two decades until 1999. Similarly there's a big gap from 2005 to 2020. I know that there may not always be suitable images for every year, but surely there's an image of the Queen that show her at various events in the 80s and 90s and the 2010s.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the choice of pictures is strange. No iconic one from the Coronation - ok this has already appeared before, but so have the 90th Birthday stamps! You would also have thought that the stamps would have been in chronological order rather than just set out randomly. I wonder what qualifications you need to just randomly select a few photographs of the Queen?
DeleteI'll add that Australia Post has accidentally released the base rate $1.10 design featuring a coloured version of one of Dorothy Wilding's photographs of the Queen taken soon after her accession in 1952, and inscription noting the anniversary. A very subtle and regal design and fitting of the Jubilee. I don't know what the other stamps will show and what else Australia Post will release (there will be at least an International rate stamp to the UK).
DeleteThis set is so laughable it starts with 2020, than 57, 66, so random, it feels like someone on the team was slightly under the influence of alcohol. Its not really consistent with previous sets, monarchy or otherwise, or whatever subject they covered
ReplyDeleteThe 1980 stamp seems a random choice. Then again I suppose it is the Queen meeting her people. I would've loved to have seen more images of the Queen visiting the Commonwealth countries. She visited Australia in 1988 for our bicentenary so there would be thousands of photos from then (although I will add the idea of marking the colonisation/invasion of Australia is no longer something a majority of Australians support).
DeleteI’ve only just noticed that the booklet includes two 90th Birthday stamps.
ReplyDeleteMost of us would probably have preferred the 95th Birthday pane.
Try to avoid using the same image of Queen used in the past issues. There must be more than one photos in the same event. Why not the stamps are arranged by chorological order of the photos? I also share of the same view above that this set is lack of photos for 80s and 90s.
ReplyDeleteThe first error, I know of, in Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Prestige Stamp Book has been reported to me with the front cover being duplicated.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark, I was sent an image this morning which is now in the body of the post.
DeleteRM have got a nerve took the whole payment for Platinum Jubilee still waiting for the PSB!
ReplyDeleteMine arrived today. PSB just loose in an oversized envelope. No packaging to protect it.
Delete
DeleteThe photo of the “Platinum Jubilee prestige stamp book with duplicated cover” made me wonder how frequent such errors, duplicated or missing pages, are and how likely we would be to notice them.
We know there should be one front cover, one each of four different stamp panes and one back cover but what about all the other pages ?
I ask because I’m surprised to see no ordinary page between the first and second stamp panes in my book received today ( No packaging to protect it, like Chris had ) and think that’s unusual other than for the ‘Letters by Night’ PSB of 2004.
Looking at the latest PSB I find some of the text very difficult to read, white on pale greyish blue in places and 6 point for the photo captions. Very shoddy.
I can confirm that the two stamps panes had no text pane between on the one I received.
DeleteThanks for that confirmation Ian.
DeletePSB x 2 in post. No protection. May not get PSBs in future if this is the offering. Lucky mine wasn't damaged
ReplyDeleteWhat proportion of Prestige Stamp Books are bought because of the “unique pane on Machin definitive stamps of particular interest to Machin aficionados”?
ReplyDeleteWould many collectors still pay about £1.66 above face value if such a pane was no longer included ?
Might 2022 see the end of PSBs 53 years after the ‘Stamps for Cooks’ £1 book of 1969 ?
Many are bought because they have Machins in, some are bought in multiples so that one can be kept whole and one (or more) exploded.
DeleteSome are bought just because collectors want every PSB (or everything full stop) that Royal Mail issues.
I think many people would not lament the passing of them, just as many were not unhappy to see most Smilers go. Now we only have the totally unnecessary Christmas one and the marginally more acceptable Exhibition ones.
Since I stopped collecting modern GB, I don't buy Prestige Books any more. I now buy just the set of Machins in them from a dealer. Yes they cost more than face but I don't then have loads of postage to use up from the remainder of the book.
DeleteRear page of the April Philatelic Bulletin shows a Prestige Booklet being issued on 05/05/2022 'Unsung Heroes of WWII'. The Definitive page appears to be made up of 5 stamps, 2x 50p & 3x £1, possibly with a Label. Will be interesting to see the actual outlay of this pane.
DeleteThe phrase indicating that the Canadian Machin stamp exists in "a sheetlet containing a single, identical gummed stamp" is rather misleading, suggesting that it contains just one stamp; in fact it is a sheet of 16 identical stamps.
ReplyDeleteAs I said earlier the Platinum jubilee issue from RM is terrible, I have been looking around on other blogs and some of the stamps being issued by Commonwealth Countries are superb! All carry details of why they were issued.
ReplyDeleteI purchased the 2022 Her Majesty The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Prestige Booklet (PSB) limited edition from the UK and it only cost me 16 pounds to deliver to Western Australia getting as bad as eBay for delivery charges, As for Australia Post i do not buy them they print a new set every week you can buy them for under face value at stamp fairs when we actually have one which is only around 3/4 times a year
ReplyDelete