Back in Business - our shop will reopen for the holidays!

It was back on 22 March that I posted our Response to global pandemic. I sought views on what we could and should do, and thanks for the responses. 

Little did we know just how long it would be before we were in any position to restart.  Since then we have relocated, had most of our stock packed in boxes until the new office could be fitted out and only now do we know (roughly) where (almost) everything is.

So we will be fully open in January.   The shop will open before the Christmas holiday so that you can shop as normal.  BUT: although the shop you see should be the same as always, we are using a different 'back-end', and some of it is very different for us.

We will deal with any Christmas orders during the first week of January, and post them as soon as possible.

Nobody knows what the government restrictions will be in January, but I suspect they will get tighter after people have mixed at Christmas.  We won't be mixing even with family who live within Norfolk. 

Just some of the new items in our shop - while stocks last!

We will post orders just once a week, and we will collect from the PO Box on the same day.  (And weather permitting, of course - we now live on a slight hill so if it is too wintery, our weekly trip to town may be delayed!)

And while we received a Christmas card from Canada within 10 days, we don't know how international transit times will work out.  Worst of all, for all customers, is the fact that postage rates will all rise again on 1 January, and I had just re-worked all the postages on the shop before these changes were announced.

New items added since March include 2020 Security Machins including from PSBs, booklets, miniature sheets, some maximum cards, etc.  We'll have the new tariff Machins on as soon as we have them.  

New product categories will be coming soon in worldwide postal history, but also Machins and other modern British postal history. 

More news about new products, special offers, and everything else, will be posted here as early as possible.

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Machin 50th Anniversary products now available on our shop for delivery after issue

Thank you for your patience while we undertook a comprehensive stock check and top-up of the most recent stamps.  Some items remain out of stock because we just can't find any more, but we have added the Machin 50th Anniversary products including a selection of first day covers, and some more Machin Business Sheet Tops.

You can find all these by going to our shop and clicking on 'Recent Additions'.  Several important points:

1. We will be on holiday from June 1 - 17, so no Anniversary products will be despatched until week commencing June 19th.
2. Because of this you may wish to order and delay your payment until our return. In this case choose any payment option other than Card or PayPal.
3. We have prepared a number of first day covers and they are at the Royal Mail Philatelic Handstamp Centres for processing and return.  If you chosen FDC is shown as out of stock, please email us and we will try to obtain more.
4. The easiest way to obtain all the stamps issued as part of this commemoration is to buy the Prestige Stamp Book and the Golden Anniversary MS.  Depending on your degree of specialisation the book contains between 10 and 22 new stamps, the only duplication being the 2 x 20p double-headed stamps, and the 4 x £1 gold.   We realise that if you buy the book to break up you may not want the duplicates, especially if you are not in the UK and cannot use the extra £1 stamps for postage.   For this reason we are offering the book with only one £1 stamp at a reduced price, as this saves us a lot of time in breaking the book up into individual stamps.  Use the option 'Reduced book'.  
5. At this stage the only single stamp we are offering is the 1st class deep scarlet MSIL stamp from the retail booklet.  Depending on feedback we may sell other stamps singly in due course.

And while you are in Machin Anniversary mode, take a look back to the FDCs we produced ten years ago.  Some of these are still available.

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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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Latest stamps added to our webshop.

The weekend trip to the York Stamp and Coin Fair was successful and uneventful, and I obtained supplies of the two new 2nd class Machin stamps, the 2015 coil and the business sheet with printed backing paper.

Also in this shop update we have added some VFU and fine used definitives, which we know some customers, especially outside the UK, find hard to obtain at reasonable prices.

There are also some Christmas high-values very fine used.  As usual you can find these by clicking on the 'Recent Additions' link.  (Remember, they are shown chronologically according to when they were added to the shop.)

All the used self-adhesive stamps are on white paper.  Many collectors believe that - despite the extra bulk of part of the envelope - the stamps are better presented this way, and will have not suffered any damage during the removal from the envelope by whatever chemical means.

Coming soon: the five airmail NVI stamps in various forms, and the booklets in which they were issued. These are three of them.

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Shop updates

Our shop has been updated with all the new Machin security definitives listed in the previous blogpost - click here to buy.  

And most of the new Post and Go Faststamps are now listed - all the 60g pairs, sets of 12 or collectors sets - click here to buy.   We have a few Faststamp 60g FDCs not listed, Birds 4 and Farm Animals: if you asked for fdcs and have not been contacted recently, please call or email.


Remember the shoplistings appear to be in random order because the most recent additions are shown first, until you click the A-Z sort key.

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Missing from many Post and Go Faststamp collections - artist signed covers now available.

Pictorial Faststamps were introduced on 17 September 2010 with the first Birds series, followed on 24 January, 19 May and 16 September 2011.  The stamps were designed by Kate Stephens using illustrations by Robert Gillmor (Wikipedia entry)

In October 2011 the Norfolk and Norwich Philatelic Society (NNPS) marked its Centenary with a week-long exhibition.  Robert Gillmor lives and works on the north Norfolk Coast and the Society was pleased to be able to display some of his original artwork for the Birds stamps.  He visited the exhibition and signed copies of his book, "Birds Blocks and Stamps" and some of souvenir covers.

The latest additions to our shop stock are 18 different birds stamps on NNPS Centenary souvenir covers signed by Robert Gillmor at £5 each (5 are shown below).

 

For some birds we have only 1 (for some we have none at all).  All we have is now listed so if you want to add one to your collection, don't delay!  Take a look now.

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Our e-commerce site, Machin security definitive & Horizon FDCs added

In the latest update to our new shop, we've added Machin definitive FDCs, starting from 2009 when the first stamps with security features were added.  And there are also a couple of Horizon label FDCs.

So while we're off to Midpex tomorrow why not browse our latest offerings, and see if you can find something for your collection.  There are many covers for the hard-to-get security stamps, and covers for single stamps (like the Aerial Post above), rather than whole PSB panes.

We'll be back on Monday, and there will be some news from the show, and pictures of the latest Faststamps.

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Our new e-commerce site: Faststamps, packs and covers added

If you have ever visited our e-commerce site (or 'shop') you will know that for about 3 years, maybe more, we have been writing about moving to a new one.  Late last year John found a new platform at Freewebstore and we have been developing it and adding stock ever since, in between keeping the website and this blog updated, and buying and selling stamps.   The home page for the new shop is here.

We've now got all the Security Machin singles and booklets listed, including the mixed booklets, but not yet the prestige stamp books, and the latest exercise has been to move all the Post and Go Faststamps from the old shop.  While doing this we've added some single sets with varieties that we have never listed before, and at reasonable prices (we think).  So if your Faststamp collection is missing anything, or if the basic collection is complete, take a look and find out if we can help you add anything.   Here's a sample:

Perth Scottish Congress 2013 pair on FDC

At the head of every page there is a navigation bar which includes 'Recent additions'.  This will be updated when we add each new group of stamps, covers etc.  Be sure to check it often.  This is the latest entry:

28 June 2013
All Post and Go Faststamps, packs and FDCs have been added to the shop: some of these have never been on our old shop.   Click here to view.  We recommend sorting into A-Z order as this will group types together.

Thanks for visiting!

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