New week shop update

Good afternoon everyone, it was a brilliant spring weekend for the most part, so not much was done inside.  Thank you for your purchases from last week's blog post; since then we have added what we think are all the 50p folded stamp booklets we have.

For many of them there is only one example, but there is a good range with cylinder booklets included, and all have reasonable perforations (no straight edges except on the booklets only issued that way.  

Some of these can be very useful for thematic or topical collections or exhibits, with subjects such as vintage vehicles (including a fire engine), amphibians, world heritage sites and cricket.

Again, you can see them under 'Recent Additions' or the booklets category.  In the latter case they are listed from the most recent backwards, so not in catalogue numerical order - to get that, click on the 'sort A-Z' link towards the right.

Here's a selection:

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Further Update: Real Bird Faststamps

Update 3 on Pictorial Faststamps - (see initial report here)

Just in case any eagle-eyed collectors think that they have struck gold....

This is the picture shown in Update 2, and which is included in Royal Mail's sales magazine, Collections.

And this is a scan of the actual sheetlet and the actual pack.  I suspect that the official Bureau FDCs will have the stamps arranged in the same sequence.

We've been told that Royal Mail have a 'gallery' of images to use in publicity, and that they release these to the trade and their own agencies as necessary.  OK, if time and deadlines are pressing, then I can understand why they might use artists mock-ups until the actual final designs have been agreed, and until the actual stamps are printed. 

It would be much more helpful to everybody if they used images of the actual articles when they get them?  (And there's no need to check what is on the Royal Mail stamps website, because they aren't mentioned.)   These labels must have been printed before Collections was put together for printing?  It sort of reminds you of Spanish hotels in 1970s brochures - what they show is an artist's impression!

Industrial Pioneers issue brings attractive railway postmarks

A set of 8 stamps honouring key figures in Britain during the Industrial Revolution is issued on 10 March 2009.
The stamps show 1st Matthew Boulton – Manufacturing & James Watt – Steam Engineering;
50p Richard Arkwright – Textiles & Josiah Wedgwood – Ceramics;
56p George Stephenson – Railways & Henry Maudslay – Machine Making;
72p James Brindley – Canal Engineering & John McAdam – Road Building.

These are some of the special postmarks in use on that day. More background to the stamps, and more postmarks are on our website.

Mayday - Sea Rescue stamps win Design Week Award

News Release 4 March 2009
DESIGN WEEK STAMP OF APPROVAL FOR ROYAL MAIL PHILATELIC DESIGNS

Mayday - Rescue at Sea stamps won in the Print Design category in the Design Week Awards announced last night.

The stamps, designed by Hat-trick, honoured the lifesaving work of the RNLI and Coastguard Agency and were issued in March 2008. The judges praised the stamps: “These stamps are phenomenal and beautiful. The perforation of SOS signal is very clever”. (Of course the image shown above is from the Royal Mail pre-issue publicity and shows conventional perforations instead of the ... --- ... actually on the stamps!)

Royal Mail Design team members Marcus James and Catharine Brandy collected the award at the event ceremony at London's Hilton Hotel on 3 March.

In the same category more stamps received a special commendation – Lest We Forget stamp issued in 2007 commemorated the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele.

Julietta Edgar, Head of Special Stamps, Royal Mail said: “We are delighted with the award; despite their tiny size stamps have always played a major role in showcasing the best of our design talent, requiring imagination and attention to detail that in the case of Mayday - Rescue at Sea even made use of the perforations.”

Royal Mail's 2010 stamp programme

Royal Mail have announced their basic stamp programme for 2010:

January - British Design Classics II
(Also Design Classics retail book 3 - Spitfire and Concorde)
Note: Design Classics book 3 & 4 issued in August and September 2009
February - Centenary of the Girl Guides
February - 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society (Stampex issue?)
March - 150th Anniversary of Battersea Cats and Dogs Home
March - Monarchs: House of Stewart (Scottish Kings)
April - Action for Species: Mammals
May - Stamps of King George V (London 2010 issue)
May - Great British Railways (London 2010 issue)
June - Children's Books (europa)
August - British Stage Musicals
September - Britain Alone (60 years on from 1940, Battle of Britain etc)
October - Monarchs: House of Stuart
November - Christmas

We can also expect on 1 March the Castles of Wales Smilers Sheet, some more Smilers for Kids, Commemorative Sheets, and stamp exhibition Smilers Sheets.
More details when they are made available.
Update to 2009 programme will follow later today.

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