Faststamps can be used forever anywhere

A correspondent reports confusion at his local post office over the validity of Faststamps.  

I suppose it is understandable that some sub-postmasters are unsure about restrictions which apply to methods of postage with which they are unfamiliar because they don't sell them.

Post and Go Labels have a 'use by date' which should be the day after purchase:

But these can be applied and posted anywhere: they do not have to be posted in the Post & Go box, they do not have to be posted at the same post office, nor even in the same town.  They can be used the next day hundreds of miles away, and handed over the counter.

Post and Go Stamps, known to all but Royal Mail as Faststamps are valid for all time, anywhere, for the current value of the service shown, in the same way that 2nd & 1st class stamps, and NVI airmail stamps, are.

To help collectors using old Frama labels, I'll add that these are also valid, still, for the price shown on them, in the same way as old (decimal) stamps are - and ½p values are also valid if used in even numbers to make up whole pence:

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Let us know of any problems you have had using P& G labels 'out of area', or using old stamps: use the comment button.

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Further Update: Faststamps take flight at Stampex, in September!

Update 2 on Pictorial Faststamps - (see initial report here)

Royal Mail have confirmed that the set of 6 1st class Bird Faststamps supplied to Bureau customers will be a 'sheetlet', ie they will be on one undivided sheet of backing paper (see above) in two rows of three stamps, the same format as the official first day cover.

The sheetlet will consist of 6 x 1st class stamps as shown, whereas the machines will dispense 5 different values.  It will be interesting to see how these are catalogued!

This is in contrast to the original Machin head Faststamps pack issued from the Bureau in March 2009, months after the launch at Bristol (October 2008).

Originally Royal Mail had said that the Faststamp* was a Post Office product and not a philatelic product, so would not be issued from the Bureau.  When it was pointed out to them that the original Frama labels issued in 1984 (right) were the subject of special distribution from the Bureau, with a specially designed FDC and FD postmarks at each of the trial sites, Royal Mail had a rethink, hence the appearance of the Machin Faststamps pack.

(* Incidentally, Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd use the term Post & Go Stamp, although 'Faststamp' had been adopted by collectors and dealers long before, and that name is used in Stanley Gibbons' catalogues.)

The arrangement of the stamps on the rolls in the Post & Go machines would produce this sort of arrangement on each vertical strip if the normal 5 different values was chosen.  You will note that the vertical 'se-tenant' pairings are different to those on the sheetlet