Royal Mail WHSmith Special packs of commemorative stamps

There have been many occasions over the last fifty years where stamps have been packaged differently by Royal Mail for retail sale.  One that springs to mind is the Fun Fruit & Veg self-adhesive pack which was sold by Sainsbury's supermarkets in special retail hanging packs.  

The rather uninspiring National Trust Centenary 1st and 2nd class stamps of 1995 were available in 'bubble packs' from (selected?) National Trust shops.  Not widely available but not widely collected these are catalogued at around £10 in the Presentation Packs catalogue produced by Packs and Cards before they ceased trading.

While we were away I noticed a post on Twitter from Suzanne Rae, Chairman of the PTS, which drew attention to new packs on sale at high street chain WHSmith:

Great to see new initiatives by the @RoyalMail - getting stamp collecting back out there for the public to discover. Here, exclusive souvenir packs at @WHSmith #ilkley #marvel #starwars #harrypotter

 

All very well, but as I pointed out, not much chance for collectors to get them in WHS-desert areas like Norfolk, Wales, and Scotland above the divide.

I then received an email from ChrisN who wrote with disturbing news for collectors, for WHSmith and for Royal Mail:

It would appear that these packs have been provided to WH Smith over a wider time period. Having visited a larger WH Smith’s I could find no ‘Stamp Packs’ on display at all. This was the same in all the stores I visited, so publicity is virtually non-existent.

When I made enquires with the management I was informed they did have them, but due to theft the items were no longer on display. They were hidden in the stockroom. Without publicity these items would stay that way, hidden.

I was then shown the Packs that they had. What appeared was quite surprising . I attach pictures of what I found. I was told that they had had other packs.

1. First World War 1916
2. Agatha Christie
3. Mr Men Little Miss
4. RAF
5. Game of Thrones
6. MARVEL
7. Harry Potter
8. Star Wars

These are not apparently available from WHSmith online and arguably they are not essential to a collection of modern GB stamps.  But if you have particular collecting interests, they may well be something you would want.  Some pictures of the packs are shown below.  Of particular interest is the wording of the contents, which leaves me confused!  The Harry Potter one is easiest to read, blown up from the pictures Chris provided:

As you can see below, the pack shows the set of 10 and the miniature sheet.  Even if we assume that the 'A4-character card' (or in some cases a poster) only shows pictures of the stamps, the 'strikingly designed postcards' have the stamps attached.  So at the time of first sale, the face value of the 16 x 1st class stamps was £10.72 - and they were being sold at £9.99.   So if you wanted the pack for your Harry Potter collection, you could get it for less than the face value of the stamps!

   

 

   

 

  

 

At £9.99 some of these packs cost more than the original stamps, but in some cases there were other bonuses, and the Marvel Comics pack seems like a particularly good bargain if you are a Marvel fan and can find one, given the original cost of the stamps only a month ago. 

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Machin Definitives from Star Wars Prestige Stamp Book

As we mentioned in September, the Star Wars Prestige Stamp Book will be issued on 14 December to coincide with the cinema release of the latest film in the series.

I mistakenly wrote then:

the PSB will contain 4 x 1st class, 2 x 2nd class and 2 x £1.40 Machin definitives which should be coded M17L MPIL.  This will give us three new stamps in the pane of 8.

I had overlooked, of course, that the Machin PSB also contained a gummed 1st class stamp coded MPIL M17L, so maybe there would only be two new stamps in the Star Wars pane.

Like the 1st class stamp in this year's Windsor Catle PSB we would expect all these to be the new darker red, also known as deep scarlet.  But the stamp in the Machin pane was lighter - presumably the original red colour as shown on the miniature sheet in the same issue, although some people thought that it was dark enough to qualify as the new colour.  Who knows what the ink mix was that time?

So what colour is the one in the Star Wars book? - Answer: Lighter than both the others!!

The picture shows: left, Windsor Castle M16L; upper right, the Star Wars M17L; lower right, the Machin Anniversary M17L.

In my view, the latest stamp cannot possibly be described as deep scarlet, it certainly isn't the same colour as the Windsor Castle one - arguably there's even less black in the mix than in the 2015 Star Wars stamp or even the 2013 Football Heroes PSB!

UPDATE 15 January 2018.  Readers have reminded me that the stamp in the Machin Anniversary PSB was printed in gravure, so different to the others in any case. For the present SG have listed the pane as U3014ac containing U3016b, the darker colour.  This may well change.

The lack of colour consistency extends to the new £1.40 stamp in the new book as well, the self-adhesive counter sheet stamp shown below on the left.  Maybe it doesn't matter because they are not supposed to be used for postage, but colour matching seems to have gone by the board.

For the record, here are pictures of the whole pane, and close-up of the three new stamps which we shall offer in our shop at the appropriate time.

The Norvic Security Stamp Checklist will be updated when I have finished dealing with the latest Post and Go stamps, and can get my head round these in the PSB.  Your thoughts, as always, are welcome!

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Unanticipated new Machins.

I use the term unanticipated rather than unexpected because I should have expected these to appear but one of them I didn't notice, and the other one I had written off as unlikely.

When writing about the new Star Wars booklets I concentrated on the fact that the booklets we had received had the SBP2 printing in different orientations, which is interesting even though we don't intend to sell the two types of SBP2 separately.  What I overlooked was the low number of mixed-content (MCIL) booklets this year, and the fact that the only other two - Windsor Castle and David Bowie - were printed on SBP1!

Thus these booklets contain one definite new stamp - or two if you collect that way.  The new 1st class deep scarlet M17L MCIL stamp is listed in our shop as 2936aC.7a


Back in the spring there were reports that the first counter sheets on paper with security printing on the backing paper were printed on 09/12/16, and a 1st class example was pictured in Stamp Magazine.  Needless to say, none were found in post offices, and the M17L printed 27/02/17 appeared in April.

Collectors and dealers don't know whether Post Office Distribution Centre at Swindon has any specific way of storing and issuing stock (though we have long believed that it is random!) but it appears that the 2017 stock was stacked on top of or in front of the 2016 printings - which have now come to light!

The ones found were printed on 12/12/16 (a Monday), whereas the one shown in Stamp Magazine was printed on the Friday.

The 1st class deep scarlet counter sheet M16L has been listed in our checklist as 2914a.6 just for the record.  Few sheets have been reported so far, so it's unlikely many dealers will have them - although we await more reports.

It will be listed in our shop using this number as soon as we have supplies to offer.  At the moment we can only show this picture.

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Star Wars Sheets update

When news first broke about the latest offering of Star Wars stamps from Royal Mail there was a long list of products but the information provided was very short on detail.  Even in their Philatelic Bulletin the technical details of the 'Ultimate Collectors Sheet' and the 'Droids, Aliens and Creatures Collectors Sheet' was sparse.

On the basis that there might just be something collectably different about these, I ordered one of each because Royal Mail had still not provided the requested information.

The 10-stamp Droids, Aliens and Creatures Collectors Sheet (Product code AT098 costing £7) is self-adhesive, producing 8 new stamps (the pair in the top row are repeated in the last row).
Four of them will be in the retail booklets but those are printed by the Walsall branch of ISP in gravure, and these sheets are almost certainly printed by the Cartor branch in litho.  The phosphor band arrangement is the same as in the booklets, but the (see below) glow-in-the-dark features - which show equally under UV light - can only be seen in normal light on the booklets (held at an angle to light, in the same way that you would for phosphor bands).

As usual these stamps are not likely to be separately listed in the Stanley Gibbons catalogues.

The 20-stamp Ultimate Collectors Sheet (Product code AS3093COLL costing £17.50), however, is on ordinary paper with ordinary gum.

And this explains why only 8 stamps this time.  With 12 stamps in the first set, 10 this time would have produced an odd layout and 12 would not have allowed much room for border illustration.

So on the basis that these are the same as the sheet stamps, there is no reason for the stamps to be separately listed in catalogues.  (I no longer have any of the 2015 set, so if they are different, then I hope somebody will tell me.)

Hidden  features.  Readers will recall that the design of the 2015 set included logos that were revealed under UV light.  I forgot to mention earlier that some of the latest stamps have similar design features.  The stamps showing BB-8,  R2-D2, C-3PO and K-250 have glowing eyes or panel lights.  The humanoid and creature stamps do not, which means that only one of the counter sheets has this secondary invisible colour.

Some illustrations of the retail booklets provided by Royal Mail appear to show the edge inscription on the retail booklets 'glowing' as if under UV light (while other illustrations do not).   On the packs we have, the booklets have no hidden feature which is revealed by UV light apart from the 'eyes' mentioned above.

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Star Wars 2017 Retail Booklets compared

Some time ago when the second version of Security Printed Backing Paper was announced I mentioned that the format did not (as we thought it would be) show the same layout when inverted, due to the arrangement of the lines of small and large lettering. (Details here.)

After some debate with collectors and other dealers I determined that we would not separately list the two versions of SBP2 (although some dealers and the Modern British Philatelic Circle are trying to).  I concluded that most collectors would want only one type (indeed, some want only one stamp whatever the backing paper looks like), and that it would be too easy to make mistakes.  Not only that but holding stocks of both would be expensive.  So we sell what we have only distinguishing between plain, SBP1 and SBP2.

However, that doesn't mean that we ignore the matter entirely, and the new Star Wars retail booklets to be issued on 12 October provide a good opportunity to show the difference, because in our supplies, the two booklets are printed on differently presented backing paper!

The booklet with blue selvedge includes the BB-8 and R2-D2 stamps; the booklet with the brown selvedge includes the Maz Kanata and Chewbacca stamps.

The blue booklet (on the right) has Small and Large Upright, followed by Small and Large Inverted text.

The brown booklet (on the left) has Small Inverted, Large and Small Upright, and Large Inverted.

As far as I know all the booklets are printed in the same orientation, that is upright (unlike much older stitched booklets which were printed tete-beche).  So all should be the same - at least from the same roll of paper.  However, it is more than possible that one or both booklets were printed from more than one roll of paper, and therefore they could both exist with the backing paper in both orientations. 

I look forward to seeing reports of booklets bought from Post Offices or delivered from Tallents House, if they are different to these.

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Star Wars revisited for October's surprise stamp issue

As readers of Britain's Sun newspaper will already know:

RETURN POST OF JEDI

Star Wars stamps will be released next month featuring classic characters from C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca to Maz Kanata — ahead of the release of The Last Jedi in December

Royal Mail account holders were told not to write about this stamp issue, especially on social media, until Royal Mail had made the official announcement, but as the stamps are on their website and the artist Malcolm Tween and others have already spread the word on twitter, I feel no need to hold back giving you the news that there is to be yet another Star Wars stamp issue on 12 October.


UPDATE:
Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a good move for the stamp collecting hobby in this country (although a lot of money will flow into Royal Mail Stamps & Collectibles which will be useful for them) but a lot of people commenting seem to have short memories, suggesting that this is not a British enterprise.  I suggest you have a look at the paragraphs on our 2015 webpage about the earlier issue to jog your memories.

The new stamps feature a mixture of old and new characters - Prog, Chewbacca, Maz Kanata, C3PO, R2D2, BB8, K-250 and Supreme Leader Snoke.

STAR WARS:THE LAST JEDI, is blasting its way onto cinema screens from 14 December 2017. To celebrate, we’re proud to announce eight new STAR WARS stamps, limited-edition collectibles and gifts, packed with friendly (and not so friendly) characters.

Available to pre-order on the Royal Mail website some products are aimed squarely at Star Wars fans, some are for normal postal use (8x 1st class shown above), while some are aimed at the philatelic community.

As well as the usual framed and bemedalled paraphernalia there is a prestige stamp book* (and a limited edition ditto) issued on 14 December when the next new film is released, and two retail stamp books issued in October.  Whilst the latter should not bring any new definitives, only four self-adhesive versions of what will probably be a gummed set of 8), the PSB will contain 4 x 1st class, 2 x 2nd class and 2 x £1.05 £1.40 Machin definitives which should be coded M17L MPIL.  This will give us three new stamps in the pane of 8.

(* From Royal Mail's shop site: "The 26-page Prestige Stamp Book includes all eight Special Stamps from the 2017 issue, four from the original 2015 issue and a unique stamp pane.", the last-mentioned being the definitive pane.)

There doesn't appear to be a new Smiler sheet this year, although the sales pages of Royal Mail's website show a mix of new and 2015 stamps and may require closer examination.
Thanks to Anonymous for his closer examination of the website!  He has found the two new generic sheets. The Droids Aliens and Creatures generic sheet of 10 with attached labels has the 8 new stamps, and two extras and is priced at £7.00 (face value £6.50).

The Ultimate Collectors Sheet (which must mean that it is the last of these?) shows all 20 stamps and is priced at the £13.00 face value.  This one could be gummed, whilst the one above would most likely be self-adhesive.  Time will tell.  The stamps from this one are also available on an A4 first day cover at £17.50, the like of which we have not seen since the Classic Album Covers sheet.  

Other countries
... have already announced some stamps, including Portugal, which has two each at €0,50 €0,80 and €0,85 and a miniature sheet with 3 x €0.50 sold at face value (allthough a souvenir colder costs more).

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Missing pane in Star Wars Prestige Stamp Book.

It's a while since we had any major PSB errors, but Matthew has sent this picture of his book which has only one of the Miniature Sheet panes, the left-pane being omitted.

I'm assured that it is not a case of the missing pane breaking along the heavy roulettes - it really is missing.  So, sold short by Tallents House, but I advised him its a keeper for now.  Anybody interested in this please let me know and I'll pass on your details.

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The Force Awakens Even More With Ultra Violet Light

If you have the Star Wars stamps and don't have an ultra-violet lamp, then you won't be seeing the features on the stamps issued yesterday that are invisible in ordinary light.  As far as I know The Drum is the first to reveal this, which isn't in the publicity information that was sent out by Royal Mail to dealers.

The stamps showing the new characters have a fluorsecent representation of the new Film's logo in yellow:

The earlier characters have different emblems in fluorescent white, some have the Alliance Starbird and others the Imperial Crest, as used on the first day of issue postmarks.  Some of these are quite difficult to see against the very dark colours of the stamp, suggesting that the fluorescent ink may be below some of the colours.

Thus although there are only 4 obvious cylinder numbers, there are actually 7!  Reading upwards:

Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Phosphor, White Fluor, Yellow Fluor - all C1

There are no fluorescent marks on the miniature sheet, but the same marks are included on the Generic Sheet, and PSB panes.

UPDATE 7 DECEMBER
My thanks to reader Jarvis, and also to Davis and Alex at Royal Mail Philatelic Enquiries who provided him with this line-drawing of the fluorescent emblems added to the stamps.  The arrangement shows the 12 stamps in the normal sheets.

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Star Wars - a bit of a let-down, but also a relief!

Readers will recall that among the many Star Wars products (see our website) Royal Mail included 'Character Stamp Sets'. 

Without precise technical details we were not sure whether these would be strips of 5 or blocks of 10 - in which case they would have to be from different sheet printings, or whether they would be torn from the vertical strips of 5 that make up the counter sheets of 60.  Although it looked like separate stamps, we can never be sure how accurate Royal Mail publicity pictures are.

I'm pleased to say that the actual sets do not appear to contain stamps from a separate printing - although I'm willing to be corrected by somebody with better eyes or reliable information!

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Royal Mail Stamp Publicity Returns to Post Office Branches

It's been some years since Royal Mail abandoned all attempts to get Post Office Ltd to advertise new stamp issues in branches.  There simply isn't enough space for an A4 poster among all the adverts for Holiday Money, Car Insurance, Current Accounts and other financial products.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find a change of tack in our village branch this morning.  I suppose I should not have been surprised given that Royal Mail want to maximise their income from this issue, but it was still a pleasant surprise.

Our branch had one A4-size (approx) single-sided stand-up card:

and one double-sided A5 (approx):

As you can see, the A4 shows the Rey stamp, and the A5 shows Rey on one side and Finn on the other.

Are these the only designs, or would it be possible to collect a set of 12!?

UPDATE: two reports of other similar material.  Larger offices have free-standing 2m-high advertising material, probably similar to that used for the Andy Murray miniature sheet.  There is also a double-side window sticker, which has adhesive on one side. This was reported from a Scottish island.

UPDATE 27 October:
I understand that some similar material has been listed on the eBay auction site, and that the sellers have been contacted by another eBay user (with zero feedback) claiming to represent Royal Mail's lawyers, and demanding that the listings be terminated.   These are apparently genuine, although eBay has a well-established procedure (VeRO) for dealing with intellectual property infringement.  It seems that the only reason for this demand is that the posters were not supposed to be sold or given to members of the public, rather than any actual copyright infringement.

Perhaps somebody should have told employees of Post Office Ltd that these should have been destroyed if not used.  Perhaps Royal Mail would have more credibility on this if they had taken similar action over the thousands of posters for stamp issues over the past 30 years or more that are in collections, listed on eBay, and the subject of a catalogue by a well known dealer in Presentation Packs and PHQ Cards. 

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British Post Office Strikes Back - Star Wars Early Release

One thing we can be surer of with the ink-jet postmarks applied by Mail Centres, they tend not to make errors with the dates as used to happen with handstamps and the Universal machine postmarks.

So I think we can say with a strong degree of certainty that at least one Post Office branch has sold Star Wars stamps already!  This clearly shows the Cornwall Mail Centre postmark of 09.10.15.

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The Force Awakens -- and brings you Star Wars stamps on 20 October 2015.

At long last we can plug the gap in this year's stamp programme and tell you that on October 20th a set of special stamps and miniature sheet are to be released to celebrate Star Wars ahead of the release of the latest movie.
 
The 18 stamps will include nine iconic characters from the previous films including Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Darth Vader.  Three characters from the seventh episode, Star Wars: The Force Awakens [Trailer], will also be featured on the stamps, which are due to be issued on October 20.

The stamps are illustrated by British artist Malcolm Tween, who has produced illustrations for Star Wars posters - see Tumblr

The font used to indicate the value, for example '1st', will replicate that of the iconic typeface used for the films.

Also being issued is a miniature sheet of six stamps featuring intricately detailed illustrations of six iconic Star Wars vehicles, brought together against a backdrop of the Death Star.

For further information, see www.royalmail.com/starwars

As we haven't had a prestige stamp book at Stampex it's possible that this issue may include one.
A Prestige Stamp Book will be issued on 17 December 2015 - more details awaited.


UPDATE:

Royal Mail have provided this information which may placate some of the critics who think that this is only about supporting a US film franchise.  I'm not arguing one war or another - although I do think that it is over the top in terms of quantity.

The series began in 1977 and so far there have been two trilogies of movies. December 2015 will see the theatrical release of the Episode 7 - The Force Awakens, which has been filmed at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire, using British expertise in cast and crew, and the two further episodes in this final trilogy will be filmed in the UK.

The producers of the new movies decided to return to a British studio and crew whose expertise and
professionalism contributed to the success of the earlier films. The new film, The Force Awakens, will reunite the three US principle actors from the original trilogy, reprising their iconic roles, as well as the robots R2-D2 and C-3PO and the alien Chewbacca. New characters will be introduced, many of which are played by British actors and include Daisy Ridley and John Boyega (both cast as leads).

From the very beginning British talent has featured strongly among both the acting and production talent including David Prowse, Darth Vadar; Alec Guiness and Ewan McGregor, Obi Wan Kenobi; Anthony Daniels, C3PO; Kenny Baker, R2D2; Iain McDairmid, Emperor Palpatine; Christopher Lee, Count Doku; Peter Mayhew, Chewbacca; and many others including Liam Neeson, Peter Cushing and Terence Stamp. The British connection also extends behind the camera with world leading British talent and from Costume to Special Effects.

Disney’s decision to base production in the UK is a major contributor to the British Film Industry. Not only is it providing employment and exposure for British acting talent, it also employs the British technical expertise of Pinewood studios from set design and cinematography to costume design. In the field of digital special effects, London is already a world centre, and the effects for the new Star Wars film have been created by the London office of Industrial Light and Magic (Lucasfilm’s effects company).

The UK is the third largest market in the world for the Star Wars films, and the new stamps both reflect the passion of the British public for the movies, and celebrate the major British contribution to the film series and the global success of the British film industry.

All the stamps will be shown on our website - although you can see them at the Royal Mail link above.  Meanwhile here are some more images, in case their site crashes!

Additional Products include a Generic Smilers Sheet.  Each of the stamps also enters the Smilers programme and is available for personalisation.

The Prestige Book which I anticipated but did not know about, will be issued on December 17th and cost nearly £17.  More details on that when we have them.  As you see from the title - The Making of Star Wars The British Story - the emphasis is very much NOT on the USA!

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