Fifty years ago Royal Mail marked the 200th anniversary of the Birth of Jane Austen with a set of four stamps and a slogan postmark.
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| 1975 Jane Austen stamp set issued in October rather than just before Christmas. |
The 250th anniversary was ignored for the current year's stamp programme - too many trite and banal subjects to use, rather than mark any cultural anniversary.
Or so it seemed.
I have today heard a rumour that a Commemorative Sheet will be issued on the actual anniversary date, December 16th.
This is odd on so many counts. The last Commemorative Sheet was United for Wildlife in 2018, and Royal Mail discontinued them. Also abandoned were Business Customised Sheets (BCS) (in 2017) followed by Smilers Sheets in 2018.
So if this is a change in direction, what more might we see in the future? I thought Commemorative and BCS were abandoned due to falling sales - certainly demand had gone through the floor about five years earlier so it was really no surprise.
Royal Mail have been contacted!
I hope that, by contacting Royal Mail, you aren't putting an idea into their heads as to how they can exploit mugs (sorry, "collectors") during the otherwise fallow month of December.
ReplyDeleteWithin any calendar year, to have even one issue (of whatever composition) following the Christmas offering used to be exceptional; now it seems that any interval greater than 3 weeks MUST be filled - however desperately.
It's certainly one way to deter people from continuing their philatelic collections into 2026!
And that after recent notification of Stamps of Queen Victoria ( stamps, min sheet, book, PSB = £52.55 ) at the end of November and FOUR books of Christmas stamps !
ReplyDeleteWhite Knight commenting - Hello, you don’t mention in your commentary the quite agreeable 6 stamps issued in 2013 to commemorate the bicentenary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. I wonder if they will be featured in the sheet perhaps along with the first set of four which would make a very convenient number of 10 designs to be incorporated in the sheet. Nothing, sadly, would convince me to buy it however - the number of issues and the price of the various products are far too exploitative and I don’t like being exploited.
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