Blog updates for August

I'll use this post to make short notes about anything added to earlier posts - including some quite old ones.

1. I've discovered a forgotten Postnote giveaway and added it in the appropriate post from last year.

2. It seems that Some Royal Mail operatives still getting it wrong on validity and surcharging.

 

 

 

 

 

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News snippets June 2024

This post has a collection of short pieces not really warranting a whole blog post of their own.

Beyond the Definitives

Last year we discussed what products would need to change apart from postage stamps, with Horizon and Post & Go Labels being obvious examples.

Horizon Labels bearing the head of the King have appeared, but not Post and Go - although Royal Mail stopped using Post & Go machines at the end of the year, so no replacement was necessary there. The existing stamps continue in use at Post Office self-service kiosks, although there are trials of a new label which does bear the profile of King Charles.

A couple of readers have reminded me that although there is no postal stationery on sale now other than the prepaid plastic Special Delivery bags.  However the Houses of Parliament, and in particular members, are entitled to use prepaid postal stationery which currently still bears the Machin head. Both 1st (provided by RM) and 2nd class (from RW) are in use.

House of Commons prepaid 2nd class envelope used June 2024.

House of Commons prepaid 1st class envelope used May 2024.

Counterfeit Stamps

Thanks to BB for alerting me to more counterfeit non-definitive stamps being sold on eBay.  The current range now includes the Discworld, Cats, Christmas including miniature sheets, Paddington Bear and Children's TV Classics.  OK, they might be genuine, but it's clear from this photograph that there are no phosphor bands whereas there should be two.

2022 1st class 'Cats' stamps which should have two phosphor bands....

Catalogue Numbers

Thanks to CN who has alerted me to changes of numbers of the King Charles booklets in the Stanley Gibbons Concise Catalogue 2024, as follows:

TB2 - 4x 1^st   now    CB1

TC2 - 8x 2^nd   now    CC1

TD2 - 8x 1^st   now   CD1 

TE2 - 4x 2^nd L now   CE1

TF2 - 4x 1^st L  now    CF1 

.............

M24L printings

CN also tells me about the new printing of the booklet of 8 x 2nd class stamps, now with M24L year code.  Here's his picture:

King Charles III 2nd class booklet stamp coded MEIL and M24L, 2024 printing.

JH has provided a good photograph of the whole booklet.

King Charles III 2nd class booklet with stamps coded MEIL and M24L, 2024 printing.

Philatelic Bureau mail

Back in 2014 we reported that Royal Mail was using real stamps (stuck over the PPI) on sendings of bulletins from Tallents House.  Sadly this practice didn't last long.

Set of 2014 Butterfly stamps used on mailings from Royal Mail Tallents House, Edinburgh.

Few philatelic bureaux do use stamps on their sendings (Isle of Man and Greenland do, I think), but Guernsey has made up for not using stamps by advertising them on their envelopes!  My thanks to RM for sending this and other interesting material.

Guernsey Post envelope used in 2024 for sending out stamp orders, illustrated with examples from previous stamp issues.

That's all for now, thanks for reading, and keep sending your news - thanks!

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Still with Machins: add something different to your collection?

The Machin portrait used on the definitive stamps from 1964 was also used on postal stationery including Envelopes, Postcards, Letter Cards, and Air Letters or Aerogrammes.

Whilst some products continued into the 21st century, Letter Cards were discontinued in 1982 and were replaced by Postnotes.  These were in a similar format to Air Letters but are printed on cream laid paper with text in shades of brown, and two phosphor bands (which are visible in this picture). They were valid up to 60g (although now they would be valid up to 100g).  

I don't know the selling price but the postage rate at the time was 15½p, which rose to 16p in April.

Address panel of basic Postnote

The unfolded size is A4, 210 x 297 mm (excluding the flaps)

1. Unfolded Postnote with text* - a 'Royal Mail' product

I don't know whether Postnotes were sold singly, but they were definitely sold in packs of 5.  

2. Pack of 5 Postnotes - front 1982

 

Pack of 5 Postnotes - back 1982

A well-known variation to the Postnotes were those sold in a promotion with the Milk Marketing Board (MMB).   There's an article about them here.  Buying fresh cream in pots would enable you to buy a pack of 7 special Postnotes for 84p (12p each) if you sent in two cleaned foil tops!

Unfolded Dairy Postnote with inscription at foot Post notes: a 'Royal Mail' product

 

The four different 'Dairy' designs on Postnotes - Strawberries, Church, Farm, Milk Churn (my identification names).

 

3. Dairy Postnotes pack of 7 - 2 each of 3 designs plus one other, 1983.

Dairy Postnotes pack of 7 with small Fresh Cream Recipe Book and Film Processing envelope.

The Welsh aspect

There were three other variants of the Postnotes, all apparently available from some Post Offices in Wales. Two showed buildings in Cardiff - Cardiff Castle and City Hall - while the third promoted the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod.  The exact status of these is uncertain.

4. Postnote promotoing the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod. The internal inscription on this one is Postnotes: a 'Royal Mail' Product with Postnotes all one word, and Product capitalised.

For Sale

1. Single original Postnote - £2.00

2. Pack of 5 original Postnotes (opened) - £9.00

3. Pack of 7 Dairy Postnotes (opened but with additions) - £25.00

3a. Single Dairy Postnote. These designs only: Strawberries, Church and Farm - £3.50 each

3b. Dairy Postnote (Farm) with BPF 68th Congress Norwich 1986 (see below) - £1.50

4. Eisteddfod Postnote - £5.00

3b Dairy 'Farm' Postnote with 1986 British Philatelic Federation 68th Congress Norwich postmark.

 

UPDATE 4 August 2025.   I found some more Postnotes including this one given away by the magazine Woman's Realm by which the price was 21p (or £1 for a pack of 5).  [Corrected typo; thanks M&M]

Postnote given away by the magazine Woman's Realm - date uncertain.

UPDATE 9 September 2025

Thanks to JW for sending this example of a Postnote properly used in 1999, sent to Edinburgh's best stamp shop, Robert Murray.

 

I wrote earlier that the Postnotes were based on Air Letters or Aerogrammes.  These were printed on light-weight blue paper in various shades.

Example of 5p Air Letter illustrated with the VC-10 Jet Airliner

The Air Letter had been introduced into the Iraqi postal service in 1933 by the then Inspector General of Posts and Telegraphs, Major Douglas William Gumbley CBE DSO Royal Engineers. The original form, on thin paper sized 124 mm x 99 mm, greyish in colour, with bluelined framing and with the designation legend on the front. It had an embossed effigy of Faisal I of Iraq and was printed by Bradbury Wilkinson.

Lieutenant Colonel R. E. Evans, Royal Engineers, Assistant Director Army Postal Service Middle East Force (MEF), proposed that a lightweight self-sealing letter card that weighed only 1/10 oz (2.8 g) be adopted by the British Army for air mail.  

The private nature of the air letter ensured its popularity among its users and that popularity, with its lightness, brought about its continued use as the civilian air letter (aerogramme). The aerogramme cost 6d to send anywhere in the world from 1943 to 1966, increasing to 9d until 1971.  (Wikipedia)

Normal aerogrammes sold by the Post Office were prepaid postal stationery, but private forms (approved by the PO) with postage paid by adhesive stamps were acceptable. No enclosures were permitted in either.

1948 Olympic Games 6d stamp imprint on Air Letter

The King George VI issues used a 6d purple printed stamp and the 6d Olympic Games stamp in 1948. The first of the new reign used the design of the 2½d Coronation stamp revalued six pence in deep red in 1953. The first definitive design showed the Houses of Parliament and was issued in 1954. Various other imprinted stamps were used, including Christmas, and the long-running VC-10 stamp shown above spanned the conversion to decimalisation, being issued in 9d, 4p, 5p, 6p, 8½p and 10½p values until 1974. 

The Machin head was introduced in 1972 as a 6½p value.  NVI 'stamps' were introduced in 1989.  The last Air Letter was issued in 2007 but they remain valid for postage. By themselves as Air Letters they would need additional stamps, but the NVI ones remain valid at the current international airmail rate of £2.20.  

There is no Air Letter service now: I asked in my post office what would happen if inserts, such as extra pages or a postcard, were included and I was told that the NVI (= £2.20) Air Letters would be valid up to 100g.

Small-format Air Letters as the VC-10 are 150 x 316 mm (excluding flaps), but the 1972 Machin design was the first in 'A4' size, 209 x 294-8 mm.  The final cost in 2011 was 85p according to the Great Britain Philatelic Society website.

1972 6½p value A4 aerogramme

1993 50th Anniversary NVI Postage Paid aerogramme.

The postal stationery catalogue Collect British Postal Stationery records 150 different special issues including this pictorial one issued in 1979 for the Golf Open Championship.

1979 Golf Open Championship aerogramme partly captioned in Gaelic.

I have a number of Air Letters/Aerogrammes for sale, NVIs at less than the new (October '25) postage rate of £2.50 £3.40!   Please ask for details or let me know which ones you are interested in.

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Postage Paid Stationery cut-outs invalid for postage

Royal Mail have made the following announcement regarding PPI postal stationery

"Postage Paid Stationery - Symbol Policy and Procedure

"PPI designs which are used on official stationery are not valid if cut out or detached from the cover, label or form on which they are printed. Similarly any post paid design, without a monetary value if cut out or detached from the stationery for which it is intended, is not valid for postage.

"Any item found to have been posted in this manner from 1 August 2012 will be subject to our revenue protection process and will be pulled from the mail stream and a fee assigned to the item for collection at the local Delivery Office in the form of a surcharge."

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When I originally drafted this blog entry I decided that there was a certain ambiguity in the announcement.  So I checked with Royal Mail and have been told that:

“No Cut-outs are valid for postage, Revenue Protection teams are instructed to take such items aside and surcharge as appropriate”.

Which isn't anything like the same thing.  The original statement says "without a monetary value"; the 'clarification' says something quiet different.

We all make mistakes, but if you are going to make what amounts to a definitive policy change statement, it makes sense to double-check that it says what you mean it to say, and to get it right!

We will, of course, be interested to see any surcharged - or indeed unsurcharged - mail which bears cut-outs.  I have some old 3p postcards which I might use, in their entirety, on a larger item.  Not a cut-out, so should be OK.

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Postal Stationery but not as we know it - Special Delivery envelopes.

For some years Royal Mail has produced plastic Special Delivery envelopes in a variety of sizes.  Those that are prepaid for postage are rightly termed Postal Stationery, but many other types exist.

Firstly there are the unstamped ones which enable users to pay by stamps, by franking machine or by Horizon label at the counter:

These are not regarded as postal stationery by most collectors.

Another type is used by companies which send a lot of special delivery mail.  This is an old one from Crucial Technology which has the Postage Paid Impression on one side but the bar-coded special delivery label is on the reverse:

 

A fourth type is the 'Business Response Special Delivery' - only recently discovered by me but they may have existed for some time.  The two examples I have found are used by a company offering to buy your surplus gold. Two sizes have been found so far:

Are there other examples - or examples of recorded signed for reply envelopes?  Let us know by email or through the comments box.

Thanks Harry for showing me the first type with a Horizon label paying the fee; I should have included that as an option.

Update:
Thanks also to Paul D for sending this further example of a PGFC bag (note address now Poole rather than Bournemouth!)  This has the same sort of Royal Mail bar-code label but the only indication that this is to be sent by Special Delivery is in the top panel which reads

Special Delivery response

Licence no. NAT247817/PL1

The whole style is very odd.  Are there any others out there, in different colours?  Any more which just have the word ' Mail ' at top left, and no Royal Mail SD branding?  Paul says that "the reverse states: 'This envelope will be sent via Royal Mail Special Delivery' (Again not in red nor Royal mail font)."

 

UPDATE 24 MAY 2014
On a recent visit to a WHSmith I found a variant of the dark blue PGFC which shows the text at the top and right side on a plain background - and thus much easier to read.  A 'penalty' warning is also shown adjacent to the opening. The non-address side is also shown:

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Do please let us know, using the comment link below.

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