Tuesday, 29 October 2024

Christmas Cathedrals 2024 set and miniature sheet (etc) - 5 November 2024

Now that Royal Mail have put the 2024 Christmas stamps on their website for pre-ordering, it makes me - once again - question whether I need to post details of new issues here at all.  But they do provide us with more technical details than they put on their website, so for everybody's benefit I shall continue.

The details will appear here on the date of issue but in the meantime you can see the products here.


Royal Mail are celebrating Christmas 2024 with a set of 5 stamps paying homage to some of the most spectacular Cathedrals in the UK. Visitors entering a cathedral in the UK are likely to be struck by their size and grandeur, intrigued by the architecture and history or moved by their services, from a liturgical pageant with exquisite music to the stillness of morning prayer.

The stamps have been illustrated by British artist Judy Joel.


Set of 5 Christmas stamps issued 5 November 2024.

Christmas 2024 miniature sheet of 5 stamps.

Details

2nd Class (£0.85) - St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh

1st Class (£1.65) - Liverpool Anglican Cathedral

2nd Large Letter (£1.55) - St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh (Church of Ireland)

1st Large Letter (£2.60) - St Deiniol’s Cathedral, Bangor / Cadeirlan Deiniol Sant ym Mangor (Church in Wales – Anglican).

£2.80 - Westminster Cathedral, London (Catholic)

Technical Details

The 39 x 30 mm stamps designed by Together Design London Ltd are printed by Cartor Security Printers in gravure.  The stamps and miniature sheet are all self-adhesive.  The miniature sheet measures 179 x 74 mm. © Royal Mail 2024. 

Generic/Collector Sheet

The sheet contains eight each 2nd and 1st class stamps, 2 x £2.80, and one each of 2nd Large and 1st Large stamps.  (The image provided shows the original draft with a value of £2.50 for the airmail stamp).  The sheet is printed in lithography which means the stamps are different, if you collect single stamps from sheets - and you'll have a lot left over because there is just ONE set of 5.  (Price £30.95).

Christmas Collector sheet issued 5 November 2024 containing just one set of stamps.

Booklets

Products

First Day Covers (2), Presentation Pack, Retail Books (2), Collector Sheet, Postcards (6).



7 comments:

  1. I have always considered it tacky and discourteous to send Christmas greetings as an email message, but under the new postage rates it will cost me about £80 to buy stamps for my usual number of cards. Perhaps the time has come to go electronic.

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    1. I think these stamps the best Xmas stamps for a long time. They are inoffensive, pretty designs rather than the usual anæmic ones issued for Xmas. I also like the refreshingly different choices of cathedral rather than the obvious ones; such as York or Canterbury; that I should have expected were I asked before it was revealed here. Xmas stamps are the only commemoratives one sees these days on post, so I shall miss Mr Fisk's card to me!

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  2. Heath Park Shopper9 November 2024 at 12:55

    Westminster Abbey has a Christmas card and Advent Calendar by the same artist I believe.
    Was it a reject by Royal Mail from the final Cathedral choice?
    The lady walking her dog, doesn't appear on each stamp, although I understand it is the trade mark of the artist!

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  3. A "refreshingly different choices of cathedral", all different from the 1969 cathedrals set and Wales and Northern Ireland represented this time.

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  4. Heath Park Shopper.11 November 2024 at 17:04

    Correction. The Westminster Abbey card is very similar in style but not by the same artist!! Maybe next year. !

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  5. I like this set, well designed and cheerful! As others have said it's just a shame Royal Mail decided to add barcodes 😕

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  6. The Edinburgh one is certainly different. Edinburgh has 3 cathedrals, none of them known as 'Edinburgh Cathedral'. The best known is St Giles', now the Presbyterian one though dating back to before the Reformation. The other two - Catholic and Episcopal - are both confusingly called St Mary's. The one on the stamp is the Episcopal one, viewed from a minor road behind it. But it's a pretty picture.

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