More one-off errors and quirky things for the collector - week 46.

As I work through my accumulations looking for what I really want to keep, and therefore finding things that I don't, there will be more one-offs that will be offered to blog readers first.

Items offered have now been consolidated to one place, which is a linked page, rather than a blogpost.   

Such was the speedy success of the Football Legends book, that I've decided to make one post a week, but probably with additions during the week.  So when you first look there may be something that you don't want but if you look at the same post later, then there may be additions.  At least that's the way I shall try to do it.

In all cases if you want the item, please leave a comment with your name or first name and initial, and then send an email with your name and address to my usual address - see top right.  And indicate which item you want (A, B, etc) in case more than one is available.  Please check the existing comments before you write.   If you already have my bank details send the money and I'll post as soon as I can.

Buyers outside the UK email and I'll provide postage cost and payment options. 

Each new item on offer will be sub-headed, thus:

A. 97p Counter Sheet date block mis-perf. - SOLD

I can't find this shown on the blog when it was discovered back in 2014.   It's the counter sheet of 97p Machins printed 18/09/14, with the die-cut perforations shift left, into the design, and down.

 

 

 

Although not clear on the image (click on it to enlarge) the selvedge extends to the full height of the row above.   Price is £25 including UK postage.   

SOLD - thanks to several people who asked.  Sorry Bill S - too late.

B. Postal Union Congress £1 reproduction pack £14 plus £1 UK postage (1 available)

In 2010 at the London Festival of Stamps Royal Mail issued a wide range of products associated with two new stamp issues.  They also issued extra unrelated products for the international audience that attended the show, one of which was a high-quality reproduction of the PUC £1 stamp in a block of 4. Individual stamps from the block are being bought on eBay for up to £6.50.  

 

I have one of these.  Remember - check the comments before putting your name down to make sure they are still available.  I will process requests in the order they are received but not always immediately - I am not checking every five minutes!   If two other people have already asked, by all means put your name down, but if those are successful your comment will not be published, nor answered as there is no way of doing so.

Postage internationally depends on destination. 

C. 1948 Olympic Games reproduction pack £7 plus £1 UK postage - SOLD

A Facsimile pack, written by Douglas Muir, includes details of the selection process and unadopted designs from the 20 artists and printers who were invited to submit designs for consideration by the Stamps Advisory Committee of the time. The pack includes a non-postally valid Facsimile Sheet of the four stamps printed in gravure as a block of four.

Postage internationally depends on destination.

---

Marshall Islands Queen's Diamond Jubilee Anniversary sheet of Machin definitives - two available!

I first mentioned this stamp issue from the Marhsall Islands back in 2012 not long after the blog started. 

Issued on 6 February 2012 the Marshall Islands miniature sheet marks the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and contains 6 x $1.05 stamps each illustrated with a British Machin definitive.

The stamp illustrations show stamps in multiples of 10, the 10p orange brown, 20p bright green, 30p olive-green litho printing, 40p azure, 50p self-adhesive 2009 security issue, and 60p light emerald. All the illustrations are slightly larger than life-size and have a line through the face value.

I have now found three of these sheets and they are available at £6.50 each including UK postage. International postage on request.

FOUND ONE MORE! 

And that's gone too!

This can be combined with anything from the shop or our sales lists (to be updated very shortly).

Please email to ian - at - norphil.co.uk

---

Christmas comes late for one FDC collector.

We have often seen in the popular press reports of postcards and letters arriving decades after being posted.  For postcards especially this is often attributed to mischievous collectors putting a common and relatively worthless Edwardian card back into the post just to see what the press make of it.  But this is a story with a difference, and I am indebted to CE of Bristol for sending it to me.

As you can see, these are first day covers of the 2012 Christmas set and miniature sheet.  But if you think the postmark doesn't look right, then click on it and you will see that the postmarks were the 2021 versions.

The story is this:  

In 2012 I was buying my First Day covers from the Crown Office in Bristol City Centre.  On the first day of issue I had to be in Bath so decided to buy my stamps from the Crown Office there.  

I seem to remember that the staff did not seem very knowledgeable but I was able to buy what I wanted.  The stamps never arrived at my home so eventually I complained and I was sent a replacement set.  

I then forgot about the whole thing until recently when these turned up.  What amazes me is that a 2012 First Day cover should still have received a stamp from 2021.  I thought First Day covers were always hand stamped, so did not the clerk notice there was something wrong? 

A strange tale indeed!

I think this is probably what happened.

The stamps were placed in a box, or a pouch, at the Bath PO to be sent to the Special Handstamp Centre (SHC), probably in Cardiff but maybe in Edinburgh.  I think by this time HPOs were no longer supplied with FDoI handstamps for local cancelling and return.

I would not have expected these to be the only ones at Bath, but they were either not sent to the SHC, or they were misplaced there on arrival.  By coincidence they were discovered around the time that last year's FDCs were being processed and were included with them without much thought.  Logically somebody should have asked questions, but I'm not sure what I would have done with them in the same circumstances.  Perhaps telephoned the addressee - that might have been a good idea!

So, when the 2021 FDCs were being processed, and these were included, they totally ignored the fact that these were not the current stamps.  And whereas handstamps which do not include the words 'first day of issue' can be applied to any old stamps, these should not have been.  These are fixed date handstamps, and the original 2012 would no longer be available.  

 

Does anybody have any other suggestions or similar stories?

---

You thought it was all over, but it isn't - Another 2012 Gold Medal Surprise !

Since Great Britain hotsed the 2012 Olympics and overnight produced stamps for each British Gold Medal Winner, there have been a number of surprising 'errors' and possible misprints, reported here.

As regular readers will remember, the stamps were issued in miniature sheets of 6, printed on an A4 sheet of 4x MS, (and these were printed in press sheets of 4x A4).

So this came as a bit of a surprise today:

(To show the perforations as they did not show well)

On eBay from seller 4chonts this is a roll of 1000 miniature sheets, each of 6 stamps, which are listed at £3,200 or 53p each compared with the 60p original price and current 63p value.

The stamp shown was the 10th in the series and one of the 6 issued on 5 August 2012.

I suspect this is a roll that would have been printed for machine application to Royal Mail first day covers. Such coils are common, for self-adhesive definitives (which are printed in one multi-value coil, with sideways printing rather than N-S), and commemoratives including post and go issues.

Royal Mail do not publicise this sort of printing and the stamps are not available to collectors or dealers (with one exception) but the system is well known.

However, there was never any evidence that the Gold Medal stamps were produced in this way as well as by the 6 regional printers contracted to achieve rush-digitally-printed overnight delivery to Post Offices for sale the next day.

So many questions !

Was this done for each medal, and for the paralympics?

Were these coils supplied to Handstamp Centres, which normally carry small stocks of stamps in order to replace damaged or wrongly cancelled FDCs/cards?

How many printers were involved? Was it any of the 6, or a different printer entirely?

Where has this one been for the last three years?

Are there any other gold medal coils ? !

---

Olympic gold medal stamp trials, and publicity 'stamps' postally used!

Kiloware can be a source of rich pickings, and not only for the people who fraudulently re-use the very many uncancelled stamps that can be found nowadays.  We've been sent this scan of a 'stamp' found in kiloware - but if you look in your catalogue you won't see this one included in the 2012 Olympic Gold Medal Winners issues.

We've shown this design before, of course, because it was one of used in pre-Olympic publicity pictures.  Who used this example in the mail and where is of course impossible to tell.  But it's a good addition to any specialist Olympic collection - even better on complete cover of course!

---

These would also be of even more interest to the Olympic specialist, and many other Great Britain collectors.   

The inscription indicates that they were used to test the overprinting process, see the text Leopard Heading - Overprint text trial at the left.

The Leopard head is in place of the Olympic/Paralympic logo.  At the foot of the stamp the Royal Mail logo takes the place of the Olympic/Paralympic logo in the margin, and the gold text there indicates that the phosphor area is 29mm deep.  (Readers will recall that the phosphor is applied only to the white background area, and on the right excludes the area of black text indicating the winner and the event.  (Click on the images to see them much larger.)

The wildlife design is clearly intended to make them very readily distinguishable from the real gold medal winners stamps (unlike the one used for publicity purposes) but we were told that they were printed, perforated and finished on 100% authentic Royal Mail stock.

We have no way of knowing - and cannot find out - where they were printed, when they were printed, how many (and how many different designs) were produced, or even whether they still exist.  We were made aware of these in November last year and tried to find out more but to no avail.

Has anybody else seen anything like these - or with animals instead of birds, perhaps? Please let us know in the comments or by email.

UPDATE 9 October:
We understand that no designs other than the parrots were used in trials.

The Cyclist stamp is still being used for postage.  Although undated we believe this one was used in the August - September 2013 period:

 

No special printng for stamps on Rio Olympic Handover covers.

After a long delay the Olympic Handover Covers have now been delivered.  In the original posting on this I suggested that there might be a special printing:

consider the likelihood of Royal Mail staff tearing maybe 100,000 stamps of these stamps from the miniature sheets?  I think the £1.28 stamp for these covers will come from a special printing of just this stamp.

From the evidence of the covers received, we can say that this does not seem to be the case:

Upper image, from cover, lower image from Memories miniature sheet:

 And a close-up of the stamp on the cover.  The design does not bleed off, and there is a clear straight to it, below which the perforations are white.  On the vertical perforations this is less obvious due to edge flaking.  Some perforations on the left side do show the straight edge to the design; the rest are flaked as shown here on the right side.

So on the basis of the pictures, these covers do not bear stamps from a special printing.

For the record, the actual cover and the double-fold insert :

---

Olympic Gold Medal Stamps - production numbers

Royal Mail no longer publicises the number of stamps printed or sold, which is a pity, because those details would help us to understand the relative scarcity of some modern stamps. 

For the Olympic Gold Medal winners stamps, six regional printers added the medalists' images to the base sheets.  It is probable that different quantities were printed by each printer, with the greatest number being printed in Swindon for the national Post Office Supplies Depot to distribute to branches nationwide, while the 518 'next-day' branches received their supplies from the regional printers.

We now know that the Attleborough printer, serving the eastern region from mid-Lincolnshire, south to the London Area, west into the east Midlands, and the whole of East Anglia produced 126,720 of each of the Olympic stamps, being 1,320 press sheets for each medalist. The press sheets contained 4 A4 sheets each containing 4 miniature sheets of 6 stamps.

Because of the overnight and standby working - printers were working late every night to take account of medals won up to 10pm - the cost to Royal Mail for the 'next day' offices was higher than for regular stamp issues.

---

2012 Lest We Forget Poppy stamp - whole sheet

I'm now able to show the whole sheet of Poppy stamps issued on 23 October.  This was first reported in the Royal Mail Philatelic Bulletin for September but had not at that time been mentioned by any other source, to collectors or dealers.

(Unfortunately I have managed to delete the original post announcing this issue and can't recover it.  Apologies to those who added comments.)

Following reports of non-availability at many offices visited by our readers I checked with the Post Office customer service line, and (after being wrongly told that there were none this year), was advised that:
 
These stamps have been distributed to around 1000 branches, including all Crown* offices, and those with philatelic counters.  They have also been distributed to selected offices near military bases and are available to all branches to order via the Horizon system.  

There are fewer than 400 'Crown' offices now.  It seemed that remaining 10,800 offices weren't been told about the new stamp, so I don't know how they are supposed to know that they can order them.  It wouldn't be so bad, of course, if Tallents House standing order customers had had them distributed automatically, but as the stamp is not regarded as different enough from the previous versions of this stamp to be regarded as new, it was not sent to standing orders customers.  As the previous versions were gummed in a miniature sheet, and self-adhesive in an over-face value generic sheet, I don't see how they can be regarded as the same.  To order from Royal Mail, the product code is AS841.

---

GB new issues - enough is enough...

Well, that was the declaration by 5-decade collector 'Machinhead' on the Stampboard forum.

Many collectors over the last decade have declaried that they had "finished with new issues", and Royal Mail is "killing the goose that lays the golden egg" - heck, we've had some of them commenting here as well .

I've been accused, in that forum discussion, of being an apologist and defender of Royal Mail, but regular readers here will know for themselves how true that is.  I started a second thread asking readers just what they wanted from Royal Mail, and in due course I will direct the policy makers to those discussions.

If you want to read what others are saying and take part, the threads are:

GB new issues - enough is enough...

 and

What would you like in Royal Mail's stamp programme

But if you want to take part, you must register, introduce yourself in the relevant thread, and follow the rules.  The owner has a robust approach to transgressions, so tread carefully until you know where you are!

---

Christmas Robin Faststamps have year code MA12

Chris has sent this picture of the collectors set of Robins from Trafalgar Square.

If you zoom in, you can see that the grey printing ROYAL MAIL in the background shows MA12 just above the 'g' of the weight.   So when this is repeated next year, it will be interesting to see which offices didn't use all their 2012 allocation!  Post Office will undoubtedly say that it is for stock control but sceptics (and cynics) will say that it is so that the collector will buy them again next year.

Two more pictures, from Richard:

---

New Madonna and Child printings for Christmas 2012

Several people have reported new printing dates for the Madonna Christmas stamps currently on sale in Post Office branches.

1st class
17/08/12 (Friday)
20/08/12 (Monday)

2nd class
10/08/12 (Friday)
13/08/12 (Monday)

If anybody has any other dates we'll be pleased to add them to this list.

---

More postmarks announced by Royal Mail for Christmas and Poppy

Royal Mail have announced two more postmarks for stamps issued this week.

The Christmas Tree is reference number 12751 from London SHC and the Poppy is 12754 from Midland DHC in Birmingham.  This is a changeable-date handstamp in use from 22 October 2012 for a year.

L12751 Christmas Common, Oxford
M12754 National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas

---

No Dinosaur Stamps from Royal Mail this year

My postmaster tells me that a number of people have asked him for this year's Dinosaur stamp set, based on the Stamp Calendar included in last year's retail book of 6 x 1st stamps.

A reminder, then, that this issue has been postponed until late 2013 due to the volume of stamps issued this year.

---

Updates on new stamp arrivals etc

The 16 October Space Science stamps have the year microprinted at the top right outside the design:

---

The Christmas stamps have the year reversed out of the phosphor bands, as usual.  On the 2nd class stamp the date is at top centre, on all others it is at top right.  The miniature sheet follows the same pattern except that the date is at the foot of the two Large Letter stamps.

We've added pictures of the Miniature sheet and Generic Smilers Sheet to the blogpost linked in the previous paragraph.

---

We have the Poppy Stamp and have added pictures and details to the original thread.
My apologies to readers and commenters - the original thread has been irretrievably deleted in error.  There doesn't seem to be any way to recover it.  A picture of the whole sheet has now been added as a new post.
 

As yet no special postmarks have been announced for 23 October.

---

Paralympic Gold Medal Winners 

Our webpage has now been updated to show all these stamps as they were issued, with details of when the medals were won.  That should make it easier for readers than working through the various blogposts.

---

A flock of Robin Post and Go Stamps available for Christmas

Royal Mail have been asked to provide a Christmas Faststamp for Post and Go Machines. Rather than issue a Post and Go variety of the Christmas stamps or issue a completely new Post and Go design they have decided to reintroduce the Robin Post & Go stamp from Birds 1 originally issued in 2010.

These will be available in selected machines from early November.  This represents a new collecting opportunity - 5 consecutive bird stamps of the same design.  And although multiple values are available even TWO x 1st would be sufficient to show that they came from the new printing.

NOTE: As this is a reissue of a stamp that was in Birds 1, it is not available from Royal Mail's bureau, only from the machines.


UPDATE 1 NOVEMBER.
This notice has been sent to PO Branches recently:

On 6 November the Post and Go version of the Robin Stamp is due to be re-introduduced.

Unfortunately, we are still waiting for a delivery of stock from our supplier.  We do have limited stock, which will be distributed to branches, but it is possible that you may not receive your stock until a later date.

We will make every endeavour to have stock sent out to all Post and Go branches in time for the Go Live date, but this may not be possible in every case.  We will distribute any outstanding stock as soon as we receive it.

---

Stamp news: A summary of reports from our readers in my absence.

This being Sunday, I have not been able to verify any of these reports with my contacts at Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. - I'll be trying to get the official story this week.


Cattle Post and Go
Brian P reported that he "visited Durham PO on the issue date, 28 September, only to find that they still didn't have them and had not been given a release date. The two machines are offering the Pigs issue from one and the Machin Head from the other and they didn't even have the packs in yet."

Well, as I was in Kent last week I decided to get the Cattle I needed there rather than making a special trip into Norwich.  Surprised that Canterbury (located in WHSmith) had no PoGo machine, but I was told there that Whitstable and Faversham did have.  A tortuous journey to the Whitstable (not signposted from Canterbury) revealed that that Crown office wasn't a Post and Go location.  And so to Faversham on Saturday 6th October (ie a week after the Cattle were 'issued'), where I duly selected 10 Collector's Sets, only to find that they were dispensing Union Flags.  My thanks to Faversham PO for the refund on the unwanted flags!

---

Various delays from Tallents House and at POs

Trevor J reports that "there was a problem with the printing of the PHQ cards (Stamp Cards) for the Olympic/Paralympic memories issue. They are currently at Tallents House awaiting packaging and probably won’t be available until mid/late October.  Same applied to the Cattle blank FDCs. 
Also, they weren’t surprised that the 6 x 1st booklet (Diamond Jubilee Machin definitive) has not appeared at philatelic outlets yet. They suggested that might well be linked to the Space Science issue date on 16th!"

A delay in production of the PHQ cards for the Memories issue is regretable though maybe not so surprising given the fast-track nature of the product.

On the other hand the Cattle designs and date was well-known and the FDC design is the same as all other Post and Go covers, only the insert card being different, so they should have been printed when the sheep were printed.  I can only assume that the delay is either with the printers in north Wales who were printing Gold Medal and Memories FDCs, or with Tallents House not having the manpower to provide new issue materials while still working on the London 2012 issues.  Not having collected our mail from the PO yet, I don't know whether any are waiting for me.  But RM must have lost FDC sales at Stampex if the blank FDCs were not available there either?  Reports anyone?

The 6 x 1st retail booklet was due for issue on 1 October, but we would expect them to appear at most POs on replenishment from Swindon, as and when needed.  They should have been at Philatelic POs unless the actual philatelic availability date has changed.  I suspect the 'link to the Space Science' issue refers to when they will be distributed by Tallents House to their standing order customers - but we have already reported that the despatch of the Space issue from Tallents House might be delayed as they are still catching up.

---

Meanwhile, on the blogpost linked in the previous paragraph, Ian N has commented:

"The guy I just spoke to at Tallents House (when phoning to find out where my Memories of London2012 standing order was) told me that the Memories issue will be despatched later in October and Space Science will be similarly delayed. 

Handstamp deadlines appropriately extended. Be nice if they published this information somewhere! "

---

Paralympics MS shortage from Tallents House.

On this blogpost regular reader Erikbloodaxe reports: "I received four sets of Paralympic sets today. Unfortunately, one mini sheet missing from all four sets. It is stamp #6, TX006, PGMWC4 - Richard Whitehead - Track Athletics Men's 200m 42. I suggest you all check your sets, sooner than later."

Mistakes happen, but if you are missing any stamps you should contact Tallents House without delay.

---

Poppy Stamp 23 October

Finally, for now, Chris reports:

"Having spoken to the Philatelic Bureau today (05/10/2012), they confirm the issue of this stamp on 23/10/2012.

However, they will not be sending it out automatically on standing orders. So a separate order will have to be placed."

So apparently a stamp issued in counter sheets doesn't constitute a 'visible' change for Royal Mail's standing order customers.  And they probably can't decide whether this is a special issue or definitive either.  To my mind instances of stamps not being automatically supplied is happening far too often!

---

Space Science stamps still due on 16 October - Royal Mail.

We had an enquiry from a customer yesterday regarding the Space Science stamps.  Apparently somebody at Tallents House had told him that the issue was being delayed - but the date was not specified.

Each stamp has the year microprinted at the top right, outside the design:

Royal Mail have confirmed to us that the stamps will be issued at Post Office branches on 16 October.  Given that we received the Railway booklet only this week, and have not yet received our advance delivery of Cattle Faststamps I suspect that it's actually the despatch from Tallents House which may be delayed, possibly to have them sent out with the Christmas issue.

Clearly the order preparation and despatch area at Tallents House is still suffering from Gold Medal stress which will continue for a while.  One of our contacts received his standing order July 27 Olympic Prestige Stamp Book on 21 September.

UPDATE 9 October:
I had a telephone report today that one office in Middlesex is selling these stamps already, and put them on sale last Friday (5th October)

Postmarks now added to our webpage for this issue, but expect more to come this weekend. 

---

Lest We Forget - Poppy stamps due 23 October

The issue of new Lest We Forget Poppy stamps on 23 October, was first reported in the Royal Mail Philatelic Bulletin for September but had not at that time been mentioned by any other source, to collectors or dealers.

This was the subject of an earlier blog post which I unfortunately mis-edited wiping out all the content but keeping the comments!  Apologies for that, here is the image, and the original comments are in their usual place.

 
 

Paralympic Gold Medal Stamp A4 Sheet formats - sheets B, C and D

We are now able to show you the formats for sheets B C and D of the Paralympic Gold Medal stamps.  Royal Mail's plan is to have 4 stamp designs per sheet where possible, but rather than delay the issue, some stamps maybe doubled-up, as on sheet D.

Click on the images to see larger versions.  The detail of the first two rows on sheet C show the individual numbering, which is in the margin:

Sheet D shows the repetition of Ellie Simmonds' stamps on rows 3 & 4, both stamps being numbered PGMWD3

 

This image show the untrimmed A4 sheet, showing the cropping marks in the corners.

---

The first Paralympic Gold Medal Winners Stamps

The first Paralympic Gold Medal Winners stamp has been issued 31st Aug 2012.

Track cyclist Sarah Storey cruised to victory in the women's C5 individual pursuit, after breaking her own world record in the heats.

Single stamp

Miniature Sheet

First Day Cover

The Sarah Storey stamps will be issued in a single A4 sheet:

In swimming, Jonathan Fox took gold in the men's S7 100m backstroke.

This stamp will be issued on 1 September, possibly in an A4 sheet with other medal stamps Update: we now know that Jon's stamp will be issued on its own, with the programme continuing on Monday 3rd September.

---