Shortage of stamps at POs reported

Just when you thought there were too many stamps being issued and too few being used, some areas are reporting severe shortages.  

Before Christmas there were many reports in the press of branch POs running out of stamps, a situation not helped by the failure of Royal Mail's website upgrade to proceed as planned and the non-availability of the Smartstamp and PayPal/eBay 'print postage' facilities.

Although extra stamps were ordered in many cases they arrived too late for the peak demand, and we understand that the shortages have continued into the new year.  At least one office was using all the Roald Dahl values on Tuesday 3rd January (a week early) simply because they had too few other stamps. Shortages of the 68p stamp are reported to be particularly acute.  I wonder if they broke up the prestige books - which are now sold above face value - look out for this stamp dated before 10 January!

UPDATE from Bristol:

Only 10 Olympic Definitive FDC blanks available

No stampcards

Only one of the two retail booklets: 20 packs in stock all the same :-(

Well, TJ, my sub-office hasn't got ANY Olympic booklets on the day of issue, though I will concede that our village doesn't rank as high as the city of Bristol when it comes to demand!

UPDATE: Thanks to David R I can now show a picture of the 68p Roald Dahl postmarked at the Jubilee Mail Centre on 4 January 2012 (this was supplied on 7 January but I didn't have time to show it right away).

My postmaster told me this week (14 Feb) that he ordered 68p stamps in December and has still not had any provided !!
On twitter, Post Office Ltd said: recently there has been a high demand for these stamps, due to this; it's taking more time to fulfil branch orders. Sorry for any inconvenience.

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Machin M11L code continues in 2012 with Dahl PSB

Just when we thought we would see a new year code early in January in the Roald Dahl Prestige Stamp Book we find that they have the M11L code for 2011!


The conventionally gummed PSB pane has 2p, 10p & 68p stamps in, with the 68p having security features. The image shows all the stamps with security slits but that would only happen if they were self-adhesive.

 

So your 2011 Machin collection isn't finished yet!  The good thing from all points of view is that each pane provides 4 of these stamps with little postage left over. (Thanks to Richard P for the picture)

See Comments below about printing process and printer for this pane.

Getting back to normal, thanks to the Apple Store Norwich

After my computer calamity on manic Monday - I really could have done without that after a week away - things are getting back to normal.

I updated the website today with the new webpage for the Christmas 2011 issue which is out on Tuesday 8th November.  This must be the closest to launch date that a new page has ever been issued - sorry folks!   All the published postmarks are there, and there are more on the miscellaneous postmarks page which could be used on the day of issue.

And designs and details are already available for the early 2012 issues.  The Olympic definitives are already shown earlier in the blog, and you'd be a Charlie to miss this fellow, in January:

The rest of the Roald Dahl stamps, due on 10 January, will be on a new webpage soon.

Meanwhile anybody who has enquired about Norfolk and Norwich Philatelic Society Centenary Covers and Smilers sheets (seen here), I'll get there soon!  While you're waiting you can see what a good time we all had at our Exhibition picture gallery.