This year on September 9th Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will become
the longest serving monarch of this country. Many territories have
already announced stamps to mark the event, including Ascension Island, Bahamas, British Antarctic Territory, Falkland
Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Tristan da
Cunha, Antigua, Barbados, Isle of Man, Papua New Guinea, Jersey etc, and Alderney which is issuing a single stamp with the extraordinarily
avaricious face value of £10!
No commemoration is included in Royal Mail's announced programme,
although many people have suggested that the gap in the programme in
October is for just such a commemoration - albeit a month late. In fact as far as the palace is concerned, this is a bit of a non-event, as the
Daily Telegraph suggested in March:
Don’t expect a commemorative stamp. Forget gilded carriages, rows of
painted faces along the Mall, cardboard periscopes in red, white and
blue. There will be no Red Arrows fly-past, nor any salute of guns in
Hyde Park or at the Tower of London; no concert or picnic or fireworks
display to disturb the peace of Buckingham Palace gardens. Instead,
according to royal aides, Wednesday September 9 2015 will be 'business
as usual’. As far as the Palace is concerned, this is not a day for
celebration.
However, in mid-July regular customers of Royal Mail were advised of future
payments to be taken from their accounts - including one entitled "Long
to Reign Over Us".
DF tells me of a recent exchange with Customer Services at Tallents House:
"
In the letter from Royal Mail it advises how much my debit card will
be charged for the issue. I telephoned to see if I could get a
breakdown of costs and what would I be receiving. They told me they
don’t know much about it and not really sure – except information was
still embargoed!! They suggested that as I had miniature sheets and
Retail books on my standing order then I could assume I would be
receiving these. I also mentioned that I had definitive stamps on
standing order. The reply was that this issue ‘maybe crosses over
between commemorative and definitive’ So I asked whether there are any
definitive stamps involved. They didn't really know!!" [Well think
back to the Diamond Jubilee issue: the counter sheet definitives were
not on automatic distribution to standing order customers, the Diamond
Blue definitive replaced the gold, there was a miniature sheet and a
press sheet. ]
Royal Mail's
Postmark Bulletin last Friday (21 August) includes a number
of special handstamps for 9 September. This is not surprising - indeed
it would be a surprise if the major cover producers did
not mark the
event with special covers. But at the back of the
Bulletin are three
sets of official First Day postmarks, two being for the upcoming Stampex issues: Rugby
World Cup and the Sea Travel faststamps. Page 8 is captioned "The
following first day of issue postmarks will be available for the Long To
Reign Over Us stamps to be issued on 9 September 2015." Page 11
includes the stamp programme for the year - but nothing is listed for 9
September !
In early August pictures appeared on the web of the Rugby World Cup
retail booklet which included not the usual 1st class Machin definitive
but a lavender-coloured version.
In mid-August PO branches received supplies of the new stamp in counter
sheets and booklets. You might have expected that these 'secret'
stamps would be enclosed in opaque packaging with a clearly stated date
for opening, but this was not the case as I have found in two branches,
one in Wales and one in north Shropshire.
Not only were the stamps delivered to POs not properly 'protected' from
sale, but they were actually placed on sale and were used before August
20th as these pictures, sent by regular contributors to this blog JF and RP, show. I'm told that the counter sheet was offered because the PO branch had run out of red 1st class stamps.
UPDATE 26 Aug. Richard reports (see comments) that there was "no special packaging and no indication of the date they were to be issued."
Although dealers have known about this for some months, Royal Mail
intend that the issue will not receive mass-media publicity until the
stamps are actually issued on 9 September. That the Queen will break
Queen Victoria's record will be the major news story in that morning's
newspapers, radio and television and Royal Mail's aim is that they will
get maximum publicity for their new stamps and other products at the
same time.
Unfortunately because the news embargo is still in place I cannot
provide full details of the products which will be used to mark this
important event. Poor distribution arrangements have meant that - as
with many other special stamp issues - the stamps have been sold earlier
than they should have been. For all the secrecy imposed on a few
dealers it is the main retail distribution network and Royal Mail's own
Postmark Bulletin that has leaked not just their existence but the
stamps themselves at least three weeks before they are due.
We know that a degree of secrecy is necessary when a proposed stamp
issue is the subject of intellectual property rights (such as for Dr
Who).
But 'Long To Reign Over Us', begs the question, as the event was almost
certain to be marked by the issue of stamps in this country, whether
such secrecy was really necessary - and whether there will ever be an
occasion for such a farce in the future.
UPDATE 28 August. An important point for collectors of FDCs and maximum cards. Mike asked:
4. Instead of the flag, Royal Mail's A007 and B001 will dispense the Heraldic Lion solo rolls with no additional inscription. As mentioned earlier on the blog the BPMA has already announced that they will be using the Lion from
16th with their overprint, so it was to be expected that this would also be available at Stampex.
