Slogan postmarks for May 2026 - and other interesting postal markings.

Wait, you say, it's still April!  True, but the first May slogans will be in use very early, in fact the British Heart Foundation default slogan will have three phases by my calculation.

As it is currently in use the standard BHF slogan will start the month.  But with local elections long-planned for Scotland and Wales we can expect slogans encouraging the early sending of Postal Votes for the Scottish Parliament and Senned.  No slogans are planned for the on-off-on_again English local authority elections but that doesn't mean that residents of England will miss out.

IMP and iLSM explained.

IMP stands for Integrated Mail Processors and iLSM for Intelligent Letter Sorting Machines.  (You can see a brief video - and discussion about - the iLSM here.)

Although the iLSMs are 'intelligent', it is the IMPs which have the facility to determine (more or less) whether a particular slogan is applied, based on the destination address.  If a letter from Yorkshire is going to Wales it should get the Post Early slogan for the Senned elections.  If the letter is going to Scotland it should get the slogan for the elections to the Scottish Parliament.  Anywhere else and it should get the standard (in this case) BHF slogan.

However, all Scotland's mail centres are, ironically, equipped with iLSMs which means that if the Post Early slogan is invoked it is applied to ALL mail, including that to Wales, England, Northern Ireland, and internationally.  

Wales' mail centres only have IMPs so they should apply the 'appropriate' slogans.

2024 General Election voting publicity images

 

After the elections are over we will probably see a Mental Health Awareness Week slogan, but the BHF may fall in between, and afterwards.  (But who knows what will happen in Sheffield?) 

Last year's Mental Health slogan.

I'll be out of the country from mid-May to mid-June so I shan't be able to add any images but do keep sending them, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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OTHER POSTMARKS AND POSTAL MARKINGS

 

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Remember, slogan postmarks appearing in May will be added to this post (although some won't be added until mid-June), so check here before you spend time scanning and emailing.

A reminder of what these monthly listings are for.  

For each month I record the different slogans in use, plus the default slogan that is used when there is nothing else.

For each of these I try to record only one of each of the basic two types, plus any that are reversed on square envelopes, which normally only gives three or four.  

Occasionally a slogan appears with different line spacing in the same format.  

I do not record multiple versions of the same as any of these unless I later get a much better example of one that I showed purely for the record, but which is otherwise not very clear.

The only exception to this, which doesn't seem to happen much these days, is when a slogan is used well out of time.  

I mention this only to avoid readers unnecessarily duplicating what has already been provided. 

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