Gibraltar Post and Go Stamp First Day Covers now available - but not from us.

As readers will know, The Royal Gibraltar Post Office (RGPO) joined the Post and Go family when the first machine in its livery was present at London 2015 Europhilex on 13 May 2015.

Two weeks before this, I had asked RGPO for details of what would be available, and received the answer:

Unfortunately we do not have any information on the Post and Go stamps yet.

Hopefully we will have some more info when the machines arrive to Gib hopefully very soon.

Also the Gibraltar Post and Go will be available at Europhilex 2015 so you will be able to purchase them by the machine.

Of course it was the machine in London I was asking about!  In the end, as we found, the stamps were dispensed from the machine, but none were available from the Gibraltar Stamps stand.  There were no 'back-office' machine stamps, and no official first day covers of course.

Imagine my surprise to receive an emailshot from Gibraltar Stamps this morning:

And on looking at their website, I find that they now have stamps with a GI country code, B002 machine number - and they also have first day covers dated 13 May.  But none of these is provided with the customary receipt. The technical information on the website is totally missing, but the FDC is illustrated.

Sadly the most telling part of this is in their description:

Post and Go machines issue a new generation of self-adhesive postage stamps that are rapidly capturing the interest of stamp collectors.

OK, we know that first day covers are rarely produced on the day of issue, being prepared beforehand, or for some time afterwards, and in stock at most bureaux for many months or years.  But is this the first instance of a first day cover not being available from either the philatelic bureau or its trade stand at an exhibition on the day of issue, but being contrived two weeks later?

I suppose RGPO had to wait for the IAR contractor to get back from London (after Essen) and reprogram B002 (which is located in Bristol) to pretend to be a Gibraltar machine.  If the stamps are in Gibraltar, they weren't printed there, and were shipped there in bulk.  Yes, many modern stamps are printed in another country - look how many Royal Mail stamps are printed in France. But the essence of Post and Go stamps is that the base stock is printed at the printing works (wherever that may be), and the black value and machine code is printed on site, the country code indicating the country in which they were printed.  The datastring on these stamps is totally bogus - unless anyone knows otherwise?
 

This is a message I sent to the RGPO (not Gibraltar Stamps which is a separate company), on 10 May, before the exhibition.  No answer was received, so I now make it an open letter to the Royal Gibraltar Post Office which, as far as we know, still doesn't have a public-access machine (if indeed they have any Post and Go machine) in the colony.

Dear Sir

I am concerned that next week the Royal Gibraltar Post Office will be selling in London stamps which are only valid for postage in Gibraltar but which are not being sold in Gibraltar.

I understand that after the London Europhilex event the machine dispensing these stamps will move not to Gibraltar but to Gibraltar House in London, from where the stamps will continue to be available.  Somebody in your organisation clearly thinks this is a good idea, and certain to attract collectors, but why would you produce stamps not available in the Colony for sale only in another country.  That would be like Royal Mail selling a British stamp only in Gibraltar (or the USA, or Venezuela!), or the Canadians selling on only in Monaco or Ukraine.

What are you thinking?

Ian Billings, Norvic Philatelics. 

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London 2015 Europhilex Post and Go report.

As has sadly been the case of late, pre-event information proved to be inaccurate or difficult to obtain once again for the London 2015 event.  (See original information)

Royal Mail's 'Post and Go News' webpage was silent about the whole event which meant that we had to rely on the IAR website or unpublished information from Royal Mail, or contact with the postal authorities.

Two days before the event started the IAR site announced that machine A009 would not be at the exhibition, and would be replaced by A004, which would then move on to a new 'to be announced' static location.  The Royal Gibraltar Postal Service could tell us nothing about the Post and Go stamps - not what would be sold, nor what 'values'.  Information from Jersey about the content of their machine varied according to who was asked!

So what we found was:

The Gibraltar machine GI01 dispensed stamps with their own flag and with the Union Flag (see below for pictures of an original error on some sales):

The Gibraltar stamps are:
Local Standard (22p), UK 20g Letter (64p), UK 40g Letter (88p)
EU 20g letter (70p), Worldwide 20g letter (80p), Registration Fee (£3.00).

The Guernsey machine GG01 produced their own flag with London 2015 inscription, and Union Flag without.

The Royal Mail machines dispensed, variously, Heraldic Beasts, Union Flags, and Machins with a London 2015 inscription.  Some Machins with year code MA13 were available on the first day (13th May) but they were replaced with undated Machins which were still in use on 14th.

The Jersey machine JE01 dispensed Jersey Flag stamps with the Penny Black 175 inscription, and Protected Species stamps launched at Stampex.

As before the Receipts carry the logo of the postal administration - except that for Gibraltar which is anonymous.

 

Errors and omissions

UPDATE
Mike reports that his receipt from machine A006 is dated 10/05/15 - going by eBay listings session 586 was incorrect but the error was corrected by session 606 (see receipt above).

Gibraltar

Robert reports: "As you may know on Wednesday at the start of the Europhliex 2015 on the Gibraltar stand the P&G kiosk was printing a mistake on the Collector Set  i.e the "WORLDWIDE up to 20g Value had "WORDWIDE up to 20g - I understand this was fixed later on Wednesday, but as can be seen on the enclosed Photos.   This was still happening at 12:52 on Thursday 14th."

     ... but clearly it had been fixed by the time I bought mine!

 

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London 2015 Europhilex - Special Handstamping Report.

As well as the Royal Mail philatelic stand, and the late announced but unadorned (no colourful banners) pop-up Post Office at the exhibition, operators from Royal Mail's London Special Handstamp Centre were present, providing postmarks on covers and cards with a hand-back service.

As well as a selection of actual self-inking handstamps, the stand also used an American Tampoprint Entrance 90 machine from Tampotech Ltd.  Ironic really, as I had only just posted to our reference site, a write-up on the machines that are currently in use and which have given stirling service at Special Handstamp Centres for many years!

I understand that this machine - which uses basically the same but improved technology and ink - is being evaluated, with the hope that they will be acquired for the handstamp centres.   Improvements will mean that postmarks can be applied more accurately especially on larger covers.

I am grateful for permission to take pictures and a video of the operation which isn't as large as I wanted it to be, but is too blurred at full-screen.

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New Horizon Label at Temporary Post Office in London 2015 Europhilex Exhibitionn

As at London 2010, there will be an operational Post Office at the Europhilex Stamp Show in London, 13-16 May 2015.

This facility will accept mail, sell Postal Orders, Bureau de Change and cash withdrawals.  Of interest to collectors will be the new Horizon label, first mentioned in June 2014.   Two operational postmarks will be available, the self-inking date stamp 'Event Office Branch 3' and a 45mm rubber 'Stamp Show 2015' handstamp.  The rubber handstamp will have index 1 for items posted during each day and index 2 for items posted after the last collection of the day.

If anyone requires a reposting facility then items should be sent to:

Post Office Ltd
Model Office
Ground Floor
Finsbury Dials
20 Finsbury Street
LONDON
EC2Y 9AQ

Items must be received by Friday 15th May and will be reposted on the day of receipt.

Please specify handstamp required (SID or Rubber) - only priority items or items of format Large Letter and above are handstamped at Post Office counters.

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Penny Black Day - BPMA and other news.

On the anniversary of the official first day of use of the Penny Black, a number of opportunities are available.

Thanks to Chris N we can show the Post and Go Faststamps available from the British Postal Museum and Archive.

Also on sale today the 1d black / 2d blue gummed miniature sheet, which should be in most Post Office branches, the 6 x 1st class retail booklet which will be in fewer branches on the first day but should reach most of them after the London 2015 exhibition which it advertises is over, and a Generic Smilers sheet, which will be in even fewer PO branches. The generic sheet is the only source of the self-adhesive 2d blue.

And a slogan postmark being applied to letter post today, which will be a rare case of a stamp-related operational postmark being available on and announced in advance of the day of issue of the stamps, not only on these special stamps but also on the BPMA Faststamps.

There are also plenty of special handstamps which are on our website.

London 2015 - Europhilex - Post and Go stamps

As so often seems to be the case, the authorities have been slow to provide details of what Post and Go stamps will be available at the forthcoming widely-publicised London 2015 exhibition.

We cannot be sure that the information here is accurate and will remain unchanged, based on the situation in previous exhibitions and the Scottish Congress at Perth.

As far as we know machines from Jersey Post, Guernsey Post, Gibraltar PO, will join multiple Royal Mail machines at the Business Design Centre from 13-16 May 2015.

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Royal Mail

The new Heraldic Beasts designs will be issued on the opening day, 13 May (click on the link to see the set and special day of issue postmarks).  Royal Mail will have three machines at the show, and the will dispense stamps as follows:

Machine	Reel A	Reel B	Overprint*
A006	Heraldic Beasts	Machin	Machin
A008	Heraldic Beasts	Union Flag	None
A009	Heraldic Beasts	Machin	Machin

* Overprint reads 'Europhilex London / Penny Black 175'

Stamps may also be pre-ordered from the back-office B001 machine - I have no idea whether these will also be available from the Royal Mail stand.  At some Stampex events they have been, at others they have not.  A009 will be alongside the stand with a bar-code scanner, so it may be expected that customers will buy their Post and Go stamps when they buy other packs, cards, albums etc which have bar-codes, via the machine.

B001 will produce Machin stamps with the Europhilex overprint, and Union Flag and Heraldic Beasts stamps without.

The usual exhibition Smilers sheets will also be available in 10s or 20s.

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Guernsey Post

... will be selling their Guernsey Flag stamp with a Europhilex overprint from GG01.   I have asked for clarification regarding sale of the Union Flag stamp.  Collectors will recall that we were originally told that the Guernsey machine at Stampex would have a Stampex overprint, but stamps were sold without it from the Machine.  Stamps with the overprint produced from the back-office machine were sold at Guernsey's stand.

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Jersey Post

We are awaiting confirmation from Jersey Post regarding their attendance and what they will be selling from JE01.  It is likely to be a Jersey Flag stamp with a Europhilex inscription and the Protected Species stamps which were launched at Spring Stampex.
Update: Jersey post confirmed the Jersey Flag with Europhilex inscription and Union Flag, but have now corrected this to Protected Species.  The Europhilex stamp will apparently NOT be available from their stand, only from the machine. 

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Royal Gibraltar Post Office

We understand that Gibraltar will launch it's Post and Go machine at Europhilex with machine GI01 dispensing stamps showing the Gibraltar Flag from reel A, and the Union Flag from reel B.  We have been told that the Gibraltar Flag stamp will have a Europhilex overprint, but this seems unlikely in view of what happened with Guernsey at Spring Stampex.  I'm awaiting confirmation from RGPO.

Whilst we know that UK stamps are sold in the Channel Islands (for SAEs to the UK), I have no knowledge of whether RGPO also sells UK stamps.  The presence of British Forces in the colony would not make this a necessity as there is also a British Forces PO presence.

UPDATE from Gibraltar Philatelic Bureau 7/5/15

Unfortunately we do not have any information on the Post and Go stamps yet.

Hopefully we will have some more info when the machines arrive to Gib hopefully very soon.

Also the Gibraltar Post and Go will be available at Europhilex 2015 so you will be able to purchase them by the machine.
According to the IAR website, GI01 will reside at Gibraltar House in London's Strand between Europhilex and Autumn Stampex.  So there will apparently not be a machine in the colony until later this year or even next.  So they are selling outside the colony a stamp which - presumably - will be valid for postage in the colony, but which is not available there.  
The sad thing is, to mangle a phrase, "You COULD make it up - and you would be right!"

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UPDATE:
Thanks to readers who have pointed out additional information buried in the IAR website.  I'll leave the links in the comments, but will only be adding extra information to the blog post when I have it from the postal authorities concerned, given the conflicting information provided in the past.

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