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.

---

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:

 

New 1st class stamp forgery - Paralympic definitive

It has been rather quiet on the forgery front recently with no Diamond Jubilee Machins, nor the new red ones.  But the forgers have turned their attention to something much easier - the Olympic/Paralympic definitive.

My thanks to Richard P for sending this scan of a Paralympic 1st class stamp which is an obvious forgery - the die-cut perforations are similar to some of those which were used on 1st class gold stamps.

UPDATE 5 Feb 2014 - some of these are for sale here

It's not clear why the grey printing of the value and Queen's head has been disturbed, this may have occurred during soaking.  But this design is a much easier one to copy than the Machin, having no security features.   We don't know whether the Olympic version also exists.

Update 8 July:

It's no surprise that the 'other' stamp has also appeared.   Thanks to Paul F for this image of the Olympic stamp.  Paul writes: I noticed while handling it the silver* does rub off.  

A different die-cutter has been used on this one in that (even inverted) the corners don't match.

Paul describes this as silver, I referred to it on the Paralympic stamp as grey - I am surprised to see that in the SG Concise the colour of the original is listed as black!!

---

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

---

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'.

---

London - Rio Olympic Handover cover delayed; and Memories of London 2012 miniature sheet?

Royal Mail report that production of the Olympic Handover cover has been delayed, and delivery will probably not be until November.

If I understand the position correctly, this has also delayed delivery of the Memories of London 2012 sheet where customers ordered them together, as they are 'bundled' for despatch by Tallents House.  By the time people get them London 2012 will indeed be a distant memory.

I wrote in the original announcement:

Update: For those interested in special printings, 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.

I wonder if this is the reason for the delay?

---

Autumn 2012 stamp issues from Royal Mail

Olympic and Paralympic Games Memories: 27 September

No details of this have yet been announced, as the content will not be known until the completion of the Paralympic Games.

---

Classic Locomotives of Scotland: retail booklet 27 September

Four Machin 1st class definitives - should have source code MCND - and two Scottish railway stamps:

1st Class – BR D34 Nos. 62471 and 62496
Two former North British Railway 4-4-0, “Glens”, LNER and BR Class D34, 62471, Glen Falloch and 62496 Glen Loy at Ardlui on 09 May 1959, the West Highland Line from Glasgow to Fort William and Mallaig. They were built by the NBR at Cowlairs in 1920/21 to the design of W P Reid.

---

Pictorial Faststamps: Cattle - 28 September 2012

Row 1: Irish Moiled, Welsh Black, Highland
Row 2: White Park, Aberdeen Angus, Red Poll

There is more details of these on our website.

---

Space Science - 16 October 2012

50th anniversary of the launch of the first British satellite Ariel 1

More details of these can be found on our website.

---

Christmas:  6 November 2012 

The Christmas stamps this year have been designed by Webb and Webb using new illustrations by Axel Scheffler - the artist who illustrated the children’s classic The Gruffalo. As usual the stamps will be in standard and large letter definitive size and self adhesive.  There will also be a conventionally-gummed miniature sheet containing all stamps, booklets of 12 x 1st and 12 x 2nd stamps, and a Smilers Generic sheet with (updated) 4 x 2nd, 4 x 1st, 2 x 86p and 2 x £1.28 stamps.

Correction: As Brian points out in the comment, this year's prices will be  87p, £1.28 and £1.90.  The pictures shown are the preliminary ones we were provided with in February. 
And as Trevor pointed out, the date we were originally given by Royal Mail and which I used without checking the calendar, was Sunday 11th.  Now confirmed as Tuesday 6th.

(Click on the images for a larger version)

---

Royal Mail Gold Medal Postmarks - details

Royal Mail have announced the design and reference numbers for collectors wishing to send Gold Medal stamped covers for cancellation. Note that all covers go to Tallents House Edinburgh from where they will be distributed to Special Handstamp Centres in rotation.

"First Day Covers - Royal Mail will accept customer FDCs until 28 September.  Covers for postmarking should be sent to Royal Mail Tallents House, 21 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh EH12 9PB    

Dates and Postmark Reference numbers

29 July - 12653
30 July - 12654
31 July - 12655
1 August - 12656
2 August - 12657
3 August - 12658
4 August - 12659
5 August - 12660
6 August - 12661
7 August - 12662
8 August - 12663
9 August - 12664
10 August - 12665
11 August - 12666
12 August - 12667
13 August - 12668

---

Smilers Stamps on demand in Olympic Athletes Village!

Copied from Graham Howard's Smilers-Info website:

Smilers Booth at Olympic Village Post Office  

Yink Ltd have tweeted us to advise that they will be manning a Smilers Booth in the Olympic Village Post Office. Unfortunately, access is provided to Olympic Village pass-holders only, i.e. athletes and workforce. Does anyone out there have access to the Olympic Village Post Office?  If so, can they get us a photo of the booth please and perhaps comment on the products available? (22/07)

---

Please help Graham, or leave a comment here - thanks!

---