Especially since Royal Mail have suffered from an influx of forgeries and pre-used stamps, they have made efforts to recover the lost revenue by raising surcharges.  This has brought even more publicity since the charge for unpaid inland letters, and those bearing counterfeit stamps, has risen to £5. But what happens with mail addressed to overseas destinations?   Traditionally, within Universal Postal Union regulations/agreements letters were flagged as underpaid and a charge raised (or not) by the postal authority in the destination country. 1958 cover from England to Be ..read more

 ------ back on Monday 22nd April ..read more

I wrote last month about 'Son of Horizon' in connection with a postage label trial at Aldwych PO, London, which has now finished. My thanks to Nick Wallis who, alongside reporting on  the Post Office Inquiry suggested "if you want to build a replacement for Horizon and fancy taking £75,000,000 of taxpayers' cash to do so, now's your chance." This is a link to the Government website which details new contracts available and invites tenders. The key part on this is Post Office is in the process of replacing its existing EPOS system, known as Horizon. Post Office is building the new system ..read more

I suspect many readers are old enough to remember Reader's Digest (RD) Prize Competitions. The company and competitions continue, which may explain why it is difficult to find on the world wide web anything other than the stamp coils which were included in their mailings from 1981. The mailings were always offering either one-offs or series of their products – books, records, etc – with the strapline of 'Your chance to win....' various amounts. RD was criticised in the US for misleading advertising and in the UK the Advertising Standards Authority determined that recipients could be led to bel ..read more

I expect the current default slogan is for Royal Mail's staff-chosen charity, the British Heart Foundation, but the absence of any stamped letters at Norvic HQ, and none from correspondents suggests that nothing exceptional has been seen anywhere! In the event that there are any, this will be where we will show the slogans in use in April 2024, along with any other interesting postal material. One slogan I will expect is for St George's Day on 23 April.  This is likely to be another 'one-day wonder', used on Monday 22nd only.           OTHER POSTMARKS AND POSTAL ..read more

There was considerable media coverage yesterday about the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal in the week that the Public Inquiry resumes hearing evidence. In case you missed the publicity, and hence missed seeing the whole of today's sessions with Alan Bates, you can catch up on the Inquiry's YouTube channel here. You can watch each session live, but if you watch the following day in catch-up mode you can advance the speed of playback through the YouTube settings cog. The list of witnesses - all of whom will have provided written statements answering questions put to them by the Inquiry's legal t ..read more

So-called 'Stamp on Stamp' designs are always popular and Royal Mail have even managed to include a 'Stamp on Stamp on Stamp' in this set of 10 x 1st class stamps.  However, by including three representative stamps from a decade, they have rather crammed the designs - some of which were arguably already too small to be on a stamp originally. Royal Mail's write-up In 1924 stamps were proposed to commemorate this British Empire Exhibition, to be held at Wembley Park in London. King George V was a keen stamp collector but he was somewhat unsure about the idea of a commemorative stamp issue ..read more

Last week I showed some less common Machin Postal Stationery in the form of Postnotes. The more common forms included  ● postcards ● reply-paid postcards ● letter-cards ● envelopes of various sizes ● registered envelopes of various sizes  ... in addition to the previously mentioned Air Letters of Aerogrammes. Those were issued by the (General) Post Office and sold at many branches.  But from 1855 companies and individuals could also have envelopes and paper 'Stamped To Order' (or STO).  The last place this was done was by Her Majesty's Stationery Office printing works at Ha ..read more

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 ..read more

This post brings previous tables up to date with the postage rates effective from 2 April 2024. The tables are included primarily to explain the stamps used on cover, because they show that, for example, a stamp originally issued as a 30p Europe 20g stamp would later be valid for 100g and with a value of £1 in 2015 and £2.50 now! Remember that the International Rate stamps are all valid at the rates shown for inland postage, just as the 2nd, 1st, Large, Signed For, and Special Delivery stamps are all valid for inland services other than those shown and on international mail. For the future, of ..read more