Where to find the unusual

We don't normally advertise offerings from specific other dealers, but some readers, especially those outside the UK, may be interested in buying some of the odd-ball items that we have mentioned in the recent and more distant past.

Many UK readers will be aware of the varied offerings from Rushstamps, and the sales list prepared for the London 2020 exhibition is full of them!  You can download it here.

Going right back to the 2012 Olympics, readers may well remember this non-stamp, of which examples are known postally used:

These are offered as singles, miniature sheets of 6, and full sheets of 24, and a few used examples.

Even further back, something I wasn't aware of at the time, a strip of three imperforate 97p stamps from the Gerry Anderson set.

Tucked away on a page of Machin phosphor omitted errors, and imperf pairs, they also have this gem (central stamp):

This is the 2017 Accession commemoration self-adhesive forgery.

I'm sure you will find it interesting; for ordinary sets and definitives however, we can match the prices if we have the item in our stock, and more will be added by the time our shop reopens.

---

London 2012 Olympic/Paralympic Sheets Offer - one only

Remember 2009?  The first set of 10 of Royal Mail's London Olympics stamps was issued, heralding another 10 each year, with many more to come when stamps were produced for each British gold-medal-winning participant.

As well as the 10 stamps, each year Royal Mail produced one of their premium priced commemorative sheets.  These were sold at over 3 x face value and although they are not priced in Stanley Gibbons catalogue the retail price is now £20-£25 each.

We have just added one set of these to our webshop at £56.

Also available is the 30-stamp composite sheet issued in 2011.  This was sold without premium and sold quickly at the time, with the price rising accordingly.  This sheet is catalogued, as SG 3204a and priced at £50.   We have this sheet available at £35.

Buy all four sheets and get £5 off, using the discount code LOND2012 at checkout.  Only one of each available.

---

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 ? !

---

London 2012 Olympic Ennis variety surfaces, now for auction

When Jessica Ennis won the Women's Heptathlon Gold Medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games, Royal Mail issued this stamp, one of 6 gold won on Super Saturday, 4 August 2012.

I kept this blog updated with the images as they were placed on Royal Mail's Image Library, usually within an hour of the medal being won.  According to BBC Sport's website, the Modern Heptathlon was scheduled to finish around 21.02. The image above is from that library - it is still there, I have just looked at it again.

The images were made available to Royal Mail's six regional printers at about the same time, so that printing could commence as soon as possible.  The stamps were printed and (as I reported at the time) available in selected post office branches by 11.30 am on Sunday morning.

How is it then that two panes (12 stamps) with a totally different image were "Purchased from a Post Office in the the Midlands", as reported by Brandon Auctions who are now offering this for £475 each:

This stamp uses an image from the Istanbul IAAF World Athletics Series earlier in the year.

If the stamp was indeed purchased at a Post Office there ought to be, as Brandon suggests,  another 12 out there as they were printed in sheets of 24.  And if one sheet was printed, then many others should have been.  What seems more likely is that this is another trial, an example of "printers' waste" which should never have escaped from the factory.  Conceivably such a sheet could have been mixed up with those printed overnight on 4/5 August, but it seems more likely that this has been hidden away for 18 months and that somebody is now trying to pass it off as having been legitimately sold at a post office.

OFFICIAL STATEMENT FROM ROYAL MAIL
“This is not an official Royal Mail stamp but was part of the testing done with printers some months before the London Olympics. All printers were under instruction to destroy such printed items and we do not have any knowledge as to how the example came to be on the auction site. However, as this example is Royal Mail property and never intended for sale it has been removed from the auction site.”

---

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:

 

Paralympics Gold Medal Stamps sold out before end-of-sale date?

We understand that some of the Paralympic Gold Medal stamps were sold out before they were taken off sale at the end of December.

As reported, the arrangement between Royal Mail and the International Olympic Committee ran from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2012, and there was a flurry of orders to Tallents House before the cut-off date, which of course coincided with the Christmas/New Year holiday.

It's reported that some orders could not be fulfilled due to stocks of one or more sheets of Paralympic Gold Medal Stamps (containing stamps for 4 different medal winners) being already exhausted.

This suggests that the Paralympic stamps may be more scarce than the Olympic.  We know someone who has access to competition mailings who has completed many sets of Olympic GM stamps on cover, but is struggling to find a single complete set of Paralympic GM stamps.

---

Buy unique Olympic Gold Medal memorabilia and help prostate charity

Sorry for the confusion, people.  There was a misunderstanding between Royal Mail (who donated these promotional enlargements) and the seller, but all is now sorted out, and the items are back on sale and have bids already - oh and if you are on twitter or facebook please send a link to this blogpost or to the items on eBay!

===============================================================

You may know that Prostate Cancer UK was supported by Royal Mail during 2012, particularly making an appearance on slogan postmarks in Movember.

Now there's a chance to obtain some unique Olympic stamp memorabilia currently on eBay, and for the next 10 days -- the auction is now closed and the sale realised just over £240 for charity a sum which was matched by Royal Mail.  Thanks for looking.

The items for sale are blow-ups of the stamps, produced by Royal Mail for promotional purposes - they are high quality photographic images on PVC Foamex backing card.  This is a rare chance to get something most unusual to add to your Olympics collection!

Shown above, the Jason Kenny sprint gold medal stamp.  Others available:

Anthony Joshua, Ben Ainslie, Alastair Brownlee, Dave Weir, and two stamps from the 'Welcome' miniature sheets, the 1st class Tower Bridge Fencing, and Athletics/Olympic Stadium.

Money raised will go towards the seller's London Marathon fundraising run for Prostate Cancer UK, and all sums will be matched by Royal Mail - see Calvin's facebook page here.

http://www.facebook.com/wallymancalv

---

Gold Medal Stamps: Another major print error, this time on Paralympic sheet E.

One of our eagle-eyed contributors has spotted on eBay another major print shift on a Gold Medal Stamp (thanks Mark!)

This error occurs on the PGMWE1 stamp - Rowing: Mixed Coxed Four LTAMix4+ issued on 4 September.

There would have been 4 of these stamps on the A4 sheet, 16 on the press-sheet of 4 x A4 sheets.  Other stamps affected would have been

PGMWE2 Athletics Men's Discus F42
PGMWE3 Cycling Track, Men's Individual B Sprint
PGMWE4 Swimming Women's 200m Freestyle S14

As you can see, this single used stamp sold for £65+ on eBay.  I wonder if there are any more out there in kiloware sacks?

This is the mint item referred to in the comments below.  This sold for only £27, which seems odd, but it depends on who saw it at the time.  Although the images look similar, the perforation runs across the legs just above the knees - compare the sky next to the Queen's head.

 

UPDATE 26 February:
Thanks to Anonymous commenter, we can show another misplacement which has been offered on eBay:

 

The overprinting - the design and caption - is shifted vertically resulting in the black overlaying the original gold caption, and the head and arm are above the level of the perforations.

We've been told about a sheet of Gold Medal stamps with duplicate printing of the black, but if the design and caption were printed in one pass of the press, the picture should be doubled as well.  We're waiting for a picture!

---

Modern British stamps ARE used by ordinary people, not just by dealers and collectors

From time to time people suggest in comments on the blog that 'nobody uses modern stamps anyway, only collectors and dealers'.  So I thought I'd show some examples of recent stamps used by non-collectors.

This batch is the complete set of Olympic Gold Medal stamps (not all show on the spread), all on newspaper prize crossword competition entries.

The set of Eminent Britons

First part of the A-Z of the UK set

Winnie-the-Pooh airmail rate on commercial evangelical mail.

British Musicals, on the Prize Crossword entries.

1992 Gilbert and Sullivan pair on personal/social mail to India

So it's there if you look for it, but I suspect most people don't collect this sort of material because it doesn't interest them, or because it's too difficult.

But surely that's what collecting is all about.  Enjoy the hunt!

---

So where are the 6 x 1st Jubilee booklets ?

... and was there any point in producing them?

It's been an interesting year for definitives, with two special issues running in a sort of parallel existence.

The London 2012 definitives were issued in January, to be replaced a month later when the Diamond Jubilee Machins were issued.  The intention was that these would be used until July when the games started, then the London 2012 stamps would be re-distributed, being replaced again by the Jubilee stamps when the games were over.

That made a lot of sense for the sheet stamps, but was less straightforward for the booklet stamps.  The London 2012 stamps were issued only in booklets of 6, whilst the Jubilee stamps were issued only in booklets of 12, so they could run side-by-side.  But post office branches tend to get new booklets only when they are ordered and, if they had plentiful stocks of previous stamp booklets, receipt of the new stamps would be delayed until they were needed.

And then there was the surprise issue of a 1st class gold book (M12L) which had been packed up in December 2011!  Why was this even produced if the London 2012 and Jubilee booklets were going to be issued in January and February?

As it turned out the greater than normal increase in postage rates in the spring meant that many stamps were purchased before the rise, money in stamps for postage producing a better return than money in the bank, and there were shortages in many post offices.  Country definitives were distributed from stores - even to the wrong countries we understand - when Machins had been ordered, business sheets were broken up and sold as singles or blocks.

After that, many people had enough stamps to last them for years and then we were distracted by the Olympics and Paralympics.  And there were gold medal 1st class stamps to use.  However, when that was all over, it was back to the normal programme.

A mixed 6 x 1st booklet of Jubilee Machins and Scottish Locomotives was issued on 27 September.  The Christmas booklets of 12 1st or 2nd were due for issue on 6 November, and the new colour stamps, including booklets of 6 and 12 x 1st were scheduled for 3 January 2013.

But there was still one Jubilee variant missing, the one coded MSND.  The booklet of 6 x 1st Jubilee stamps with this code were scheduled for philatelic release on 1 October, and released they were - from Edinburgh to collectors and dealers.

As far as I can tell, nobody has found these in any post office branches yet, except the designated philatelic ones. Many branches are still selling London 2012 booklets.  Indeed we were told that these had been recalled after the games: one office which returned them and then ordered replacements were supplied with - yes, more London 2012 booklets!  (It has even been suggested that the Post Office Supplies Depot at Swindon has not received any Jubilee books of 6, which might explain why they are not in post offices.)

Supermarkets and corner shops could be selling them, but they will have had Christmas booklets since early November.

So if you know of any outlets - Post Offices, corner shops, newsagents, office suppliers, or supermarkets - which have or have had these for sale, please let us know.

---

Gold streaks on Olympic Gold Medal stamp sheet

A friend showed me this recently so I scanned it for display here.

(click on the image for a much bigger one)

If these were printed in photogravure we might suggest that these marks are a doctor-blade flaw, but this are litho, and there are several marks.  It looks to me similar to the drag marks that I get on my desk-top printer when there has been a problem with printing.

I understand that the original finder has several like this and the extend over the whole A4 sheet.  The colour affected is the gold, so it is from the original Walsall printing and is under the Olympic images.

---

ALERT! London 2012 stamp products going off sale in a month

According to the November Philatelic Bulletin from Royal Mail, 31 December 2012 will see the withdrawal of all London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games products, except those in the annual packages.

This isn't something we've had from our official sources (and the Bulletin has been known to be wrong before) but if you are missing anything from the huge output, be sure to get it soon!

As a guide, Stanley Gibbons GB Concise Catalogue will list the Gold Medal stamps as individual stamps and as 'sheetlets' (Gibbons' description). Here are a few items you might want to fill gaps in next the album supplements issued next spring:

a. From the Keeping the Flame Alive PSB (Royal Mail stock code YB049)

- three panes of special Olympic sports stamps

        2982a pane Archery and Dressage pair

        2983a pane Football and track Athletics pair

        2984a pane Aquatics and field Athletics pair

- a pane of gummed Olympic/Paralympic definitives

b. Six retail booklets of 6  x 1st class stamps including 4 definitives and 2 Sports stamps

c. Generic (Smilers) Sheet - Olympic Venues
This contains self-adhesive Olympic/Paralympic definitives but printed in litho by Cartor, the only source of these stamps.

d.  Three miniature sheets
- Welcome to the Olympics
- Welcome to the Paralympics
- Memories of London 2012


One of the cheapest products, although it won't get catalogue listing, is the pack which contains facsimiles of the 1948 Olympic stamps, se-tenant, at £5.95.

All these are still available from Royal Mail online or by post.  But if you want single Gold Medal stamps rather than sheetlets, or stamps from the PSB, then you'll need to ask your favourite dealer!

UPDATE:  One of our readers reports that he was told by Tallents House that the sale had to stop at the end of the year "as that is when Royal Mail licence from LOCOG runs out ". 
"This has to be the shortest time Royal Mail have had items on sale for and am sure a lot of collectors will get caught out. Watch this space in 2 months time when the complaints start rolling in."

Indeed.  Dealers can still continue to sell these without a licence from LOCOG but the primary producer arranged things so that instead of 12 months some of their products will be on sale for only 3 months (the Memories of London 2012 sheet).

---

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 :

---

Gold Medal Winners Stamps, the printers revealed

From a Royal Mail press release:

ROYAL MAIL NAMES TEAM THAT MADE LONDON 2012 GOLD MEDAL STAMP PROGRAMME A SUCCESS 

"The base sheets had been pre-printed by Walsall Security Printers* and all printing facilities were managed by St Ives Management Services. The six printers utilised included:

• Aquatint bsc, Wimbledon, London
• Acorn Press, Swindon, Wiltshire
• Breckland Print (Colchester Print Group), Attleborough, Norfolk
• Crescent Press, Solihull, West Midlands
• Allander Print, Edinburgh
• B and D Print Services Limited, Leyland, Lancashire**

"Following their production, a fleet of almost one hundred Royal Mail Sameday vehicles were ready and waiting to deliver them to the thousands of staff at more than 500 Post Offices, along with additional assistance from A to Z Couriers. The Post offices also opened on Sundays to sell stamps from Saturday’s medal wins.

"A memorable aspect of the Gold Medal Stamps programme was the presentation of special enlargements of the stamps to the respective gold medal winning athletes. This was made possible by a team of staff working around the clock at Indusfoto, London, Loxley Colour in Glasgow and Freshwater UK in Cardiff."

---

* As previously stated litho printing for Walsall is undertaken by their French subsdiary, Cartor. 
** Identified on the stamp sheets as 'Preston'.

---

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.

---

Olympic definitives now available as Smilers - only on Smartphones so far?

We mentioned as the Olympics started that there was a Smilers booth on site, but bemoaned the fact that these stamps - as shown on the Olympic Venues Generic Sheet - were not available to collectors or the general public outside the Games Venue at Stratford.

Now, Graham Howard reports on Smilers-Info News (as a result of the eagle-eyes of one of his readers) that these stamps are now available to anybody, via the latest version of Royal Mail's Smartphone app which allows you to upload into a Personalised Smilers Sheet any photo taken on the phone or already stored there from other sources.

Graham has sought clarification from Royal Mail about whether the new additions to the Smilers Personalised range will be made available through conventional Smilers purchase routes, enabling many more people to buy them.  Watch this space, or Smilers-Info News on the link above.

---