Royal Mail annunced details of it's 'Swap-Out' scheme, yesterday, 31 March 2022 a year ahead of what was originally said to be the deadline for exchange. That impeccable timing means that the news has been published in the national and local press on 1 April, ie All Fools Day.
My first 'Thoughts' on 10 February made a number of assumptions and posed a number of questions. Reader contributions from sources in Royal Mail and elsewhere were added, and Royal Mail changed some of the earlier decisions, notably on Christmas stamps.
I'm starting from the assumptions that these will be invalidated:
All Machin definitives since 1971, and £1 values before that;
All Christmas stamps after 2005 when definitive-size started;
Commemoratives, Post and Go*, and Country Definitives≠ will not be invalidated.
Those assumptions leave plenty of grey areas, such as the Long To Reign MS which includes one single definitive and four larger commorative stamps, the Wildings both national and regional, and the greetings/smilers definitive-sized stamps sold in booklets of 6. There are many more.
≠We also don't know about the country definitives for sure.
We now know that, in summary, Machin and Country definitives will be invalidated, along with some special definitives, but that Christmas, Commemorative and Special, and Post and Go stamps will NOT and these will not be accepted for trade-in. More on this below.
Terminology. In describing the stamps which will or will not be invalidated Royal Mail have used the terms 'valid (for) postage' and 'valid for swap(-out)', which might have been phrased in a better way. Be sure to understand which is which, and if there is any doubt refer to Royal Mail's doscumentation rather than any other.
Royal Mail will launch an ongoing nationwide awareness programme, that will run throughout the year, to ensure that everyone who wishes to swap out their stamps will have the opportunity to do so. The campaign will include press and radio advertising and a national door drop leaflet delivered to every household in the UK.
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| There will be a big surplus of these unless RM change! |
Mechanics
There are two Swap-out forms, one for consignments worth up to £200 and one for bulk swaps.
For consignments under £200, gummed stamps (ie not self-adhesive) must be stuck to the form. Self-adhesive stamps should remain affixed to their original backing paper.
For bulk consignments, gummed stamps must not be stuck to paper and must instead be clearly batched by the stamp value and colour in clear plastic bags of 50 stamps (less than 50 stamps must be collated together in value order). [1]
Stamps will be swapped on a like-for-like basis, that is 1st class Large unbaroced will be swapped for 1st class Large barcoded.
Stamps for which there is no direct equivalent will be swapped for 2nd class barcoded stamps. [2]
Dealers
Some dealers I have spoken to have confirmed that they will trim their Machin stocks according to popularity. It makes sense if you overstocked on some values to liquidate them now, especially if they were purchased at a lower price than the current tariff.
Those dealers who already offer discount postage – and probably some who don't – will offer discounted barcoded stamps after trading-in because they will be hugely overstocked with those.
Another has said that they will consider retiring more quickly and get the benefit of full value for at least the Machin & Country stocks. And that is where life gets difficult – what does he do with £50,000-worth of barcoded 2nd class stamps?
Collectors
If you are a collector, it is time to sort your collection and check all packets and stock-books for mint duplicates, or for gaps in your collection. If you are going to carry on collecting, look out for dealer special offers.
Details of the mechanics
The stamps which can be exchanged for new barcoded stamps are:
- all Machin definitives, NVI and valued. This includes ALL NVIs, ie Special Delivery, Signed For, Worldwide 20/40g, Europe 20/40g, Worldwide Postcard, and the dark blue 'E' stamps.
- the double-head (QV & QE) stamps and the Olympic definitives.
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| All invalidated |
- country definitives are also included in the exchange scheme, although there has not yet been any announcement about barcoding these or any other replacements. For the present the existing pictorial ones will be exchanged for new barcoded Machins.
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| Invalidated |
- Minisheet or Retail Booklets that contain both Specials plus Machins or Country Definitives will be swapped to the face value of the Minisheet or Retail Booklet. [4]
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| May be swapped in as a booklet, or split and only the Machins swapped in. |
- Full Prestige Stamps Books are not valid in the Swap Scheme, this is because only a small number of stamps in these books will not be valid for postage with effect from 31 January 2023.
- Definitive panes that are removed from PSBs, will be valid for Swap at the face value of the pane.
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| Individual definitive panes can be swapped. |
- Smilers Sheets issued with Country Definitives will be valid for Swap on a like for like basis e.g. 20 x 1st Class English NVI = 20 x 1st Class Barcode stamps.
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| Smilers with Country definitives will be invalidated |
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| We think that Smilers with commemorative flags will NOT be invalidated. |
- The swap will replace the stamps on a like for like basis and will not compensate for any additional product premium above the face value of the stamps e.g. Presentation Pack & PSB premium.
Stamps which will not be exchanged include all Christmas stamps (reversing the previous statement), all special, commemorative and greetings pictorial stamps whether definitive-size or larger.
Stamps issued for the Smilers range are special stamps so will remain valid for postage and are not valid for Swap on their own. (See above regarding Smilers containing Country Definitives.)
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| Smilers sheet with Greetings stamps remain valid for postage. |
Post and Go stamps from Post Office self-serve kiosks remain valid and are not eligible for exchange. [3]
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| As far as we know all Post & Go stamps remain valid for postage |
Update 2 April. Just to make it clear(er), the stamps listed several paragraphs above as being the ones which will be traded in (or swapped out) are the only ones. This means that the rest are not eligible and will remain valid for postage. I realise that this does mean a few grey areas as below, but "if it wasn't a regular Machin definitive sold as such" or one which was part of a miniature sheet (eg Long to Reign) or PSB pane, then it remains valid for postage:
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| Decimal Wildings remain valid for postage. |
Grey Areas
Some grey areas remain.
- 1969 Pre-decimal Machin 10p, 20p, 50p £1
- 1999 Profile on Print large 1st class
- 2017 £5 Accession Machin
- 2017 £1 embossed gold Machin ex PSB & MS (the other stamps in the MS will be invalid)
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| £1 gold embossed - commemorative and valid, or definitive and invalidated? |
Postage and losses
Anybody using the scheme can use the address FREEPOST Swap Out.
Royal Mail Terms and Conditions include:
If your Swap Out form and/or non-barcoded stamps are lost in transit to us, we will not consider any claim for loss unless you provide proof of posting and a copy of the original Swap Out form. We therefore recommend that you keep the necessary records.
If you use a bulk Swap Out form for a Swap Out of £200 or more, we recommend sending your Swap Out form using a service with adequate compensation cover for the value of the non-barcoded stamps you are sending to us.
When you send your bulk Swap Out form for a Swap Out exceeding £200 using a Royal Mail delivery service, we will compensate you for the cost of that service by returning additional barcoded stamps equal to the value of your postage cost. Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed is likely to be the most appropriate service to use in most cases. (My highlighting - If you send £1000-worth of stamps using £7.65 special delivery you will receive barcoded stamps to the value of £1007.65.)
UPDATE on this 1 August - see end of blog.
UPDATE 6 April: There are reports that some people using the basic 'Freepost Swapout' address have been refused a proof of posting certificate at the Post Office because there is no postcode. (Other POs have said this is not a problem!)
If you ask Royal Mail to send you a form it comes with a preaddressed prepaid envelope. If you are sending under £200 using the downloaded form locally printed, use this address to send your package and you should get a proof of posting with no problem. Remember also to keep a copy of the Swap form in case of losses in either direction.
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| Royal Mail Swap Out Freepost address. |
There could have been another way
As already mentioned dealers who have large stocks of postage in the form of Machin and Country definitives (including the Smilers sheets with country definitivess on) will trade those in for new barcoded stamps. They will then hold more of those than they can possibly use even if they ordinarily sell a lot of stamps for postage.
Likewise collectors trading-in their collections: the only option is to sell them below face value for postage. This must reduce Royal Mail's sales income for the next year at least.
Royal Mail's accounts include a liability represented by 'Stamps in the Hands of the Public' (SITHOP), a reflection of the acknowledgement that a service had been paid for at some time in the past that might be realised some time in the future. This ought to include the stamps in the hands of collectors and dealers, the latter frequently selling those old stamps for postage. The liability currently stands at around £250M in their accounts.
The shiny new barcoded stamps received by dealers who trade in their old stocks will continue to be part of the SITHOP figure. In fact if the current figure is based on historic sales of postage and usages, at annual rates not adjusted for higher prices, then the new figure will be considerably higher.
One option which could have benefitted both the trade and Royal Mail would be an exchange for cash. Royal Mail would save a lot of effort sending out new stamps, for those swapped in, if a cash payment was made instead: they would have had to check what was traded in, but they have to do that anyway. As the dealers would not be able sell their large surpluses of barcoded stamps at full face value, there would wisdom in those dealers taking that cash at a discount on face.
Clearly this is something that Royal Mail's accountants would have to consider as it would be a real cash outflow rather than adjusting a liability. But there is no evidence that this has even been considered.
If this option was available, social and business buyers who would normally have bought from dealers will instead buy from Royal Mail at full value, producing a cash inflow.
Notes
1. A limit of 50 seems low when stamps were issued in sheets of 100. I don't understand the sentence in brackets.
2. “Stamps for which there is no direct equivalent will be swapped for 2nd class barcoded stamps.” I presume this will be aggregated, ie all the stamps without a direct equivalent will be totalled and the total divided by the then value of the 2nd class stamps. While this might make sense for some values, exchange for 1st class stamps or others would be much more useful.
A dealer trading in a sheet of Special Delivery stamps worth £6.85 each will get around 250 x 2nd class stamps! It would make much more sense to provide sheets of £5 stamps and £1.85 stamps. As one dealer has said, with these new stamps being larger, it will be difficult to put 10 on a small Special Delivery envelope.
3. As this document is addressed to the general public we must assume that this also includes all those at museums and sold direct from Tallents House or at stamp exhibitions or other events.
4. Swappable miniature sheets containing Machin or Country definitives which will become invalidated, some also containing other stamps, include the 2000 Stamp Show, Diamond Jubilee, Long To Reign, End of WW2, Lest We Forget (x3), 2017 Machin Anniversary, Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament, Wembley, Robert Burns, 2010 Europhilex. {There may be others!)
See also Royal Mail's webpage with the basic details of the scheme & FAQs.
https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps
From this page you can see the two forms which will be available, one for up to £200 and the other for bulkier exchanges.
The full terms and conditions are here (pdf file) https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2022-03/Stamp-Swap-Out-Terms-and-Conditions.pdf
EDIT 1 August. The T&Cs were amended on 14 July - see https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2022-07/Stamp-Swap-Out-Terms-and-Conditions-Last-updated-14th-July-2022.pdf
Principal changes are para 23 where they have changed the '2nd class only' to 'typically 2nd class but maybe others', especially if this avoids them rounding up. I guess this means if the overs are, say 19p, you will get a handful of shrapnel rather than a 2nd class (68p) stamp. Makes sense.
Para 5.3 now says that they have the right to decline a swap if the form has been submitted to exploit the scheme for profit, and 23A allows them to aggregate your swap-out forms if you have submitted an excessive number [implied: which means a lot of rounding up to your advantage] but that they will always return barcoded stamps to at least the value of what you sent in.
An addition to Para 5.5 is confusing: here it is in full.
"5.5. If your swap out form and/or non-barcoded stamps are lost in transit to us when using Special Delivery Guaranteed we will not consider any claim for loss unless you provide a certificate of posting and the tracking number of the item (we therefore recommend that you keep the necessary records). The foregoing sentence does not apply to swaps outs sent using the Freepost service if you are sending a standard swap out form for stamps with a postage value of £200 or less."
It is unclear whether the highlighted sentence means that they won't consider any claims at all if you use the Freepost service, or that they don't need a certificate of posting and tracking number for the Freepost service because the latter doesn't exist and some people had trouble getting Post Offices to give them a certificate for the short Freepost Swap-out address. I don't see how they can not consider claims if you have copies of the forms that you sent in.
My thanks to BrianP for drawing my attention to the new T&C.
Brian also writes: "RM still have serious problems with their record keeping for swap outs. I rang today to chase a missing order which I sent in on 1st July. They said they had no record of any orders received from me in July. This is odd, as I have sent in 22 forms in July and had 20 of them returned to me already."
