I posted this in May 2023, but it's worth repeating here as people keep asking why £1 and £2 special stamps are being issued when there is no £2 rate.
What values should be used on Royal Mail's special stamps?
For decades Royal Mail has told us that they preferred not to use anything other than 1st class and airmail values for their special stamps, even though this meant that the cost of sets was high, and few were being used on inland mail by people who wanted to send 2nd class mail.
I'm highlighting this hear now, although I cannot provide any details yet, but several of the stamp issues projected for the rest of the year have stamps with values other than 2nd, 1st and £2.20.
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| Pair of £1 Viking Britain stamps |
Royal Mail have said, "We have chosen to add the other values to ensure variety and also provide the option for more flexible use of special stamps for parcels."
This would, however, mean that some stamps might being issued for which there was no specific postage rate, and therefore no solo use.
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| Block of 4 £2 Dinosaur stamps. |
This might just ensure that the pictorial stamps that they are making available for all users to actually use, might be treated in the mailstream in a way that made it worthwhile for people to use them.
Look out for these in future new issue announcements.
So there you have it - and there have been plenty of them. How many other than 1st or 2nd have you seen, if you are in the UK? How many £2.20/£2.50 have you seen in the rest of the world?
How many have been offered to people to use on parcels or any other mail? I know my PO had a supply of Tower of London for all counter positions, and not all would have been bought by collectors.
I thought it then and think it now, "to ensure variety and also provide the option for more flexible use of special stamps for parcels" is nonsense.
ReplyDeleteIf there was some collaboration with Post Offices to promote (or even offer) the use of Special Stamps on parcels that would make sense. And if the value were something that could be combined with a 1st or 2nd to make a Small Parcel. If anything, the sensible value would be a £2.10 to be used as 1st Large (or 2nd Large).
DeleteNeil,
Delete"Some collaboration with Post Offices" will NEVER happen.
Four Second and four First makes a set of eight stamps, all useful values, for £8.80.
Two each of Second, £1, First and £2 makes a set of eight, half of them postally useless, for £10.40.
That £1.60 difference is the real reason for £1 and £2 'special' stamps.
Yep - that's why it's nonsense. I'd take 2 each of 1st, 2nd, £2.50 for £9.40 as a good set (3 se-tenant pairs). When all the Small and Medium Parcel prices end in 9p - there's no way to make it without needing make-up stamps. If there were 1st and 2nd Large instead of £2 then you can get closer but go over by 1p. That's what's missing a 99p stamp! Then 2x1st plus 99p is a Second Class Small Parcel.
DeleteI won't echo the comments made above, but I'd find 20p, 30p or 50p values quite helpful. I like to use nice commemoratives for Postcrossing for example, and several of them - 1st plus 2nd gives a 30p deficit for a postcard and a 10p and 20p barcode stamp in addition means that there is barely room for the address and a message!
ReplyDeleteI had to supply a stamped special delivery pouch to be used for return of some documents. The postage and fee was £8.20 and the post office in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, supplied me with 2 x £3 Queen Elizabeth bar-coded definitives and 1 x £2.20 Christmas stamp. When the item was returned to me the stamps were uncancelled.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, there isn't an £8.20 rate; it's £7.95 to 100g and £8.95 to 500g.
DeleteFor a European collector friend, I make up £2 or £2.10 commemorative stamps with bar coded ones and ask a small post office to cancel them to avoid them arriving unfranked. I feel more commemorative ones should by issued as 2nd class ones.
Delete"ask a small post office to cancel them to avoid them arriving unfranked" doesn't affect whether it will get the outward Mail centre's blurred ink jet cancellation so unfortunately there's the risk of both.
DeleteI take in all my Postcrossing cards to my local Post Office and they postmark them for me. They were all arriving without postmarks before and I had so many complaints! Now I get compliments, so it all works. I have to remember to position the barcode stamps so that they can be postmarked avoiding the barcode as per regulations!
DeleteIf this is Royal Mail’s plan then how many other countries do something similar? Royal Mail have a long history of including higher values but most of the time those values were used. I’d rather see sets of eight stamps consisting of 1st and 2nd stamps,
ReplyDeleteAt £11 the "Spiders" set looks like a sensible five each of First and Second.
ReplyDeleteBut will they have the correct phosphor bands this year ?
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DeleteLars,
DeleteNo, as I haven't had the advice note for Porridge even though that's earlier than Spiders.
Probably lots of stamps though like the earlier TV ones.
Porridge set £13.40 Seems like 4x 1st & 4 x £2
ReplyDelete50p is the difference bewteen 2nd and 1st, so there is another possibility which would produce stamps for the airmail rate.
DeleteI work as a tour guide and often have people on my tours who want to send cards home to North America from Canterbury in Kent. I'll direct them to the Post Office (a few counters in the local WH Smiths, the beautiful former Post Office building is now split between Sainsburys and an Italian restaurant). However, they never seem to have other than definitive stamps for £2.50. I asked a counter clerk and she said that the only commemoratives they get are the Christmas stamps and a small supply of 2nd / 1st stamps from 'most' commemorative sets. That's in a major tourist destination! What we need are booklets of, say 4 Overseas Postcard rate stamps (for each commemorative issue that includes that value), which can be bought at gift/card shops. They would be far more useful than Prestige Stamp Books or Collector Sheets, and people from other countries would realise that the UK still issues commemorative stamps!
ReplyDelete"They would be far more useful than Prestige Stamp Books" but wouldn't sell for £27.40 !
DeleteRoyal Mail know that the few tourists who send postcards abroad will make do with a £2.50 definitive.
If Royal Mail were serious about issuing Special Stamps that might actually be used then the proposed price increases could be useful to them.
ReplyDeleteCurrently two each of £1, 1st (£1.35), £2 and £2.50 ( with half the stamps useless ) is £13.70.
But four 1st ( most used value, £1.65 ) and two each of 2nd (85p) and £2.80 will be £13.90, about the same.
Sadly it won't be too long before £2.20 or £2.50 is the standard 1st class rate...
ReplyDelete