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.

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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 ? !

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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!!

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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.

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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!

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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

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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!

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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).

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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."

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

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Updates on new stamp arrivals etc

The 16 October Space Science stamps have the year microprinted at the top right outside the design:

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The Christmas stamps have the year reversed out of the phosphor bands, as usual.  On the 2nd class stamp the date is at top centre, on all others it is at top right.  The miniature sheet follows the same pattern except that the date is at the foot of the two Large Letter stamps.

We've added pictures of the Miniature sheet and Generic Smilers Sheet to the blogpost linked in the previous paragraph.

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We have the Poppy Stamp and have added pictures and details to the original thread.
My apologies to readers and commenters - the original thread has been irretrievably deleted in error.  There doesn't seem to be any way to recover it.  A picture of the whole sheet has now been added as a new post.
 

As yet no special postmarks have been announced for 23 October.

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Paralympic Gold Medal Winners 

Our webpage has now been updated to show all these stamps as they were issued, with details of when the medals were won.  That should make it easier for readers than working through the various blogposts.

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Stamp news: A summary of reports from our readers in my absence.

This being Sunday, I have not been able to verify any of these reports with my contacts at Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. - I'll be trying to get the official story this week.


Cattle Post and Go
Brian P reported that he "visited Durham PO on the issue date, 28 September, only to find that they still didn't have them and had not been given a release date. The two machines are offering the Pigs issue from one and the Machin Head from the other and they didn't even have the packs in yet."

Well, as I was in Kent last week I decided to get the Cattle I needed there rather than making a special trip into Norwich.  Surprised that Canterbury (located in WHSmith) had no PoGo machine, but I was told there that Whitstable and Faversham did have.  A tortuous journey to the Whitstable (not signposted from Canterbury) revealed that that Crown office wasn't a Post and Go location.  And so to Faversham on Saturday 6th October (ie a week after the Cattle were 'issued'), where I duly selected 10 Collector's Sets, only to find that they were dispensing Union Flags.  My thanks to Faversham PO for the refund on the unwanted flags!

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Various delays from Tallents House and at POs

Trevor J reports that "there was a problem with the printing of the PHQ cards (Stamp Cards) for the Olympic/Paralympic memories issue. They are currently at Tallents House awaiting packaging and probably won’t be available until mid/late October.  Same applied to the Cattle blank FDCs. 
Also, they weren’t surprised that the 6 x 1st booklet (Diamond Jubilee Machin definitive) has not appeared at philatelic outlets yet. They suggested that might well be linked to the Space Science issue date on 16th!"

A delay in production of the PHQ cards for the Memories issue is regretable though maybe not so surprising given the fast-track nature of the product.

On the other hand the Cattle designs and date was well-known and the FDC design is the same as all other Post and Go covers, only the insert card being different, so they should have been printed when the sheep were printed.  I can only assume that the delay is either with the printers in north Wales who were printing Gold Medal and Memories FDCs, or with Tallents House not having the manpower to provide new issue materials while still working on the London 2012 issues.  Not having collected our mail from the PO yet, I don't know whether any are waiting for me.  But RM must have lost FDC sales at Stampex if the blank FDCs were not available there either?  Reports anyone?

The 6 x 1st retail booklet was due for issue on 1 October, but we would expect them to appear at most POs on replenishment from Swindon, as and when needed.  They should have been at Philatelic POs unless the actual philatelic availability date has changed.  I suspect the 'link to the Space Science' issue refers to when they will be distributed by Tallents House to their standing order customers - but we have already reported that the despatch of the Space issue from Tallents House might be delayed as they are still catching up.

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Meanwhile, on the blogpost linked in the previous paragraph, Ian N has commented:

"The guy I just spoke to at Tallents House (when phoning to find out where my Memories of London2012 standing order was) told me that the Memories issue will be despatched later in October and Space Science will be similarly delayed. 

Handstamp deadlines appropriately extended. Be nice if they published this information somewhere! "

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Paralympics MS shortage from Tallents House.

On this blogpost regular reader Erikbloodaxe reports: "I received four sets of Paralympic sets today. Unfortunately, one mini sheet missing from all four sets. It is stamp #6, TX006, PGMWC4 - Richard Whitehead - Track Athletics Men's 200m 42. I suggest you all check your sets, sooner than later."

Mistakes happen, but if you are missing any stamps you should contact Tallents House without delay.

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Poppy Stamp 23 October

Finally, for now, Chris reports:

"Having spoken to the Philatelic Bureau today (05/10/2012), they confirm the issue of this stamp on 23/10/2012.

However, they will not be sending it out automatically on standing orders. So a separate order will have to be placed."

So apparently a stamp issued in counter sheets doesn't constitute a 'visible' change for Royal Mail's standing order customers.  And they probably can't decide whether this is a special issue or definitive either.  To my mind instances of stamps not being automatically supplied is happening far too often!

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Memories of London 2012 stamp issue

The Memories of London 2012 Miniature Sheet will contain four stamps, and be issued on the 27th September.

It honours the volunteer Games Makers who did so much to make the games run smoothly, and also features the Paralympic GB procession.

£1.28 Paralympic Games Opening ceremony	1st Class Paralympic Games   Paralympics GB procession
1st Class Olympic Games  Games makers	£1.28  Olympic Games  Closing ceremony and handover to Rio

New! Click on the image for a larger version; larger images of individual stamps are shown at the end of this entry.

This will be the final issue relating to the London 2012 games - until the anniversaries!

Update 28 September: Some special handstamps for this sheet are shown on our webpage.

Update: RM Tallents house will have the following commemorative cover available from the 27th September.  It bears the closing ceremony/handover £1.28 stamp from the miniature sheet above, and will be cancelled with the special postmark shown.

Update: delivery of the cover has been delayed possibly until November - see here.

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.

Stamp images:

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Final Paralympics 2012 Gold Medal Winners Stamps

We can now bring you the final Gold Medal Winner stamps to be issued for Paralympics 2012.

These are all issued 10th of September 2012.

Our hearty congratulations to all the medalists across the games!

We would be interested to hear in the comments your thoughts on the issues to date - bearing in mind that Royal Mail had just 10 days to prepare for these PGMW stamps, in contrast to several years for the OGMW stamps delivered for the Olympic Games.

Also, do you think Royal Mail should do it all again for the Rio games in four years time, as Australia Post did this year (though they weren't busy), or do you think this should be a one-off for the hosted Games?


David Weir wins his third gold medal with victory in the T54 800m final (stamp PGMW-J1):

Jonnie Peacock wins gold in the men's T44 100m final with a time of 10.90 seconds a new Paralympic Record. (stamp PGMW-J2):

Josie Pearson throws a new world record of 6.58 metres in the Women's F51/52/53 discus and she finishes a country mile ahead of the rest of the field to claim GB's 10th stadium gold medal, and 32nd gold medal overall.  (stamp PGMW-J3):

Cyclist David Stone added to the tally in the morning session, successfully defending his Paralympic mixed T1-2 road race title at Brands Hatch.  (stamp PGMW-J4):

Issue J A4 Sheet layout:

And finally, David Weir won his fourth gold medal at the 2012 Paralympics, winning the T54 wheelchair marathon gets an A4 printer's sheet to himself. (stamp PGMW-K1):

Issue K A4 sheet layout image:

Collectors and dealers can now relax a little until StampEx, when we can look forward to the "Memories of the London 2012 Olympiad XXX and XIV Paralympic Games" miniature sheet:

The Memories of London 2012 Miniature Sheet will contain four stamps – 2 x First Class and 2 x £1.28 – featuring images from both the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This will include an image of the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games and reference made to the handover to Rio for the next games in 2016.

We do not now expect their to be the previously intended 6-stamp miniature sheet issue for the Paralympics, since these have been superceded by the PGMW series.

In the mean time, thank you to all our followers, old and new, for their contributions to this fast and furious issue schedule, and we look forward to your continuing contributions!

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Paralympics First Day Postmarks - dates and codes

First Day Covers - Unless handed in over the PO counter, covers for postmarking should be sent to your nearest Special Handstamp Centre - which you can find by calling Royal Mail Customer Services - 08457 740 740.

We understand that they will be accepted until 10 October.

First day postmarks will be the same 'flag' style as for the Olympic Games Winners stamps:

These are the references you'll require:

31 August - 12692
1 September - 12693
3 September - 12966 12696
4 September - 12697
5 September - 12698
7 September - 12699
8 September - 12701
10 September - 12703

We understand that these Flag postmarks will be applied ONLY to gold medal winner stamps.

Paralympic Gold Medal Winner Stamps - 8th Sept issues

A rundown of the medal stamps we know will be issued on Saturday - RM may issue more if, as seems likely, there are more winners today in addition to Josie Pearson.

Helena Lucas took gold and Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell bronze as Britain won its first ever Paralympic sailing medals in Weymouth, in the 2.4mR class in a single-handed small keelboat. (stamp PGMW-I1)

Sarah Storey equalled the British record for modern Paralympic victories as she routed the C4-5 road race to win her 4th gold medal of the London 2012 games. (stamp PGMW-I2)

Fifteen-year-old Josef Craig claimed gold in the S7 400 metres freestyle, breaking his own world record in the process. (stamp PGMW-I3)

Hannah Cockroft sets a new Paralympic record of 31.90 seconds in winning the T34 women's 200m (stamp PMGW-I4).

And finally, the A4 sheet layout image: for the I issue:

None today but four more gold medal stamps on Friday.

There is no stamp issue on Thursday 6 September.  

These four will be issued Friday 7th September.

As we announced on Monday, the Team Dressage stamp will use a picture from the medal ceremony which will take place on the evening of Tuesday 4 September. The stamp is shown as the fourth one on sheet H.

September 4 medals continued:

David Weir successfully defended the T54 1500m Paralympic title he won in Beijing with another stunning display.  Following his gold in the 5,000m on Sunday, he edged out Prawat Wahoram in a record time of three minutes 12.09 seconds to claim the fourth Paralympic gold medal of his career. (Stamp PGWM-H1)

September 5 medals:

Sarah Storey made it three victories from three events at London 2012, winning the C5 women's road cycling time trial at Brands Hatch. (Stamp PGWM-H2)

Ollie Hynd won Great Britain's sixth swimming gold of 2012 with a brilliant performance in the SM8 200m individual medley. (Stamp PGWM-H1 PGWM-H3)

September 2 medals concluded:
 
Sophie Christiansen won the individual Dressage Grade 1a, and with Deb Criddle, Sophie Wells, and Lee Pearson won the Team Dressage gold. (Stamp PGWM-H4)
 

And this is what the whole sheet looks like if you can find one:

More Paralympic Gold Medal stamps to be issued today

Royal Mail will issue more gold medal stamps today following these successes by Great Britain's athletes.

September 3rd medals continued:

Shropshire's Mickey Bushell made a brilliant start and powered away to finish in 14.75 seconds, to win the T53 100m final. (Stamp PGMW-G1)

Britain's Dani Brown made it back-to-back Paralympic archery titles after beating compatriot Mel Clarke in the compound open final. (Stamp PGMW-G2)

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September 4th medals:

Swimmer Heather Frederiksen takes gold in the S8 100m backstroke - beating her main rival, the USA's Jessica Long and retaining her title. (Stamp PGMW-G3)

Dressage star Sophie Christiansen became the first Briton to win three golds at the London Paralympics. The 24-year-old, riding Janeiro 6, posted a huge score of 84.750% to take victory in the freestyle dressage Grade 1a test.  (Stamp PGMW-G4)

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