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Monday 29 April 2019

A Trip To The Post Office


Yesterday  I had to visit my local sub post office as I needed to post some letters that required to be sent by recorded delivery. Whilst I was there I decided to pick up some low value self adhesive Machins for make up postage.

The teller informed me that "no one seems to ask for stamps any longer, and they only had a few 1p,2p,5p and 10p low values in the folder". After looking at what she had I purchased the part sheets available, perhaps twenty or so stamps from each sheet of 25.

When I got home just for curiosity I checked them out. I was really surprised to see that the dates on the sheets were seven and eight years old. The 1p sheet was dated 2011 with no iridescent code, the 5p M12L with the date block of 12/09/12 in the margin. The 2p values also had no iridescent code and were dated 31/08/11. The 10p value was more up to date being 2016. The teller was not joking when she said "no one asks for stamps"

It just goes  to show that one can still pick up old stock at face value. I am not a collector of self adhesives, I do not deal in them much either. Checking them out on eBay I found that for these dates the cylinder blocks were selling at roughly £1.70 to  £2, the date blocks sellers were asking for prices in the region of £3 - £5. I will give you one guess where these are going?

I will also need more low value postage, so I will have another trip to the same post office sometime this week. Enjoy your stamps, enjoy your week.

6 comments:

Ian - Norvic said...

The 2011 printings must have had an iridescent code - they started in 2009 and changed to MA10 in 2010. They have no source code, being MAIL.

Anonymous said...

The 2011 incarnations of the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 20p didn't get iridescent codes . They got them in 2012with the colour change, the 2011 68p, 76p, £1.10 and £1.65 had iridescent codes, as did the 2009 50p & £1 along with the NVIs and the ‘High Values’ and the Signed for stamps.

https://blog.norphil.co.uk/2011/06/machin-definitives-with-security.html

Roy said...

Thank you anonymous for your comment and explaination. Our readers are greatful to you.

Anonymous said...

2011: 1p,2p,5p,10p,20p No iridescent overlay.
2011: 68p,76p,£1.00,£1.10,£1.65 Iridescent overlay year code M11L.

Mike Warren said...

I went to our local sub post office last Friday,in a OneStop,and they didn’t have any self adhesives for the low values.The few stamps they did have being current were from 2017! They also were using the old non perforated gold horizon labels.

Kevin said...

Sadly, although only 6 months since first day of issue the Birds of Prey retail book of 6 is now sold out and out of print, unless you are lucky to find a post office still holding stock. No doubt dealers will have stocks and the price they sell at will reflect Royal Mails inept approach to stocking some philatelic items in lieu of nonsense paraphernalia relating to has been musicians and children's comics.