Royal Mail’s prices change annually – usually on the Monday nearest to the 1st April (The beginning of Royal Mail’s new financial year). This year the changes are introduced on Monday 27th March 2017.

Royal Mail ‘headline’ rate change is 1p on 1st Class and 2nd Class to 56p and 65p respectively but, dig a bit deeper and significant rises – in international – especially European letter rates that impact Post and Go stamp collectors, can be found.

The ‘1st Class Reel’ NVI values to change are that of the ‘1st Class’ (from 64p to 65p) , ‘1st Class Large’ (from 96p to 98p) and ‘World 10g/Euro 20g’ value (from £1.05 to £1.17), ‘Euro 100g’ (from 152p to 157p), ‘World 20g’ (from 133p to 140p) and finally ‘World 100g’ from 225p to 227p resulting in a 29p increase (3.6%) in the cost of a collectors strip from £7.75 to £8.04 (Ouch).

For ‘2nd Class Reel’ rates they change from ‘2nd Class’ (from 55p to 56p) and ‘2nd Class Large’ (from 75p to 76p) changing the cost of the strip from 130p to 132p.

Royal Mails prices can be found here: Royal Mail Tariff 2017

Royal Mail’s prices change annually – usually on the Monday nearest to the 1st April (The beginning of Royal Mail’s new financial year). This year Easter Monday puts a (chocolate flavoured? ) spanner in the works and so prices change on Tuesday 29th March.

Essentially this tariff has very little in the way of the surprises of recent years – but one that could be missed is the difference – for the first time- for postage purchased online verses the price for good old stamps or postage labels applied at a Post Office. For the first time Royal Mail are disincentivising the use of stamps over postage bought online. Granted there has been a difference in pricing for some years for postage applied via a franking machine, but the prices were not really comparable since the necessary equipment had to be purchased/leased and maintained, so only for high volume users did the savings really make any sense.

Royal Mails prices can be found here: Royal Mail Tariff 2016

In summary: Online postage prices have been frozen and the stamped postage generally increased by a few pence. Many prices have not changed including those for International letters between 20g-100g.

Where does this leave Post and Go collectors? The NVI values to change are that of the ‘1st Class’ (from 63p to 64p) , ‘1st Class Large’ (from 95p to 96p) and ‘World 10g/Euro 20g’ value (from £1 to £1.05), resulting in a 7p increase in the cost of a collectors strip from £7.68 to £7.75.

Following on from their introduction at Europhilex 2015, the latest design of Horizon Postage Label has now been seen in day to day use in operational (not event) Post Offices.

The example shown is from Moorgate Post Office a few days prior to relocation of that office.

At Europhilex 2015, as is usual with International Exhibitions in London, as well as the usual Royal Mail ‘Philatelic’ offering, an operational Post Office was established on the gallery.

As part of this and similar to London 2010 where the now widespread  ‘Gold’ Horizon had its ‘First Day’ , Post Office Ltd introduced the latest updated design of Postage Label, with reduced size Queens Head (to allow for more information to be printed) and change to a colour more reminiscent of ‘2000’ Machin stamps.

The first day of use (and therefore introduction of the base label) was 13th May 2015. This is believed to be followed by a limited use in selected branches in the following weeks.

As can be seen, as well as the change of colour, the design features a reduced size Queens Head (Previously announced by Royal Mail at the BPMA Friends Open Day at Debden a year ago on 17th May 2014) and a ‘precancel’ to serve as a reminder that items bearing labels cannot be reused, even though they are not routinely postmarked or cancelled.

The increased ‘white space’ is understood to be made available for a future change in the overprint itself.

New NVI and OV stamps plus a Horizon label 

Monday 30th March 2015 – ‘Tariff Day’ ,  the day that Royal Mail change their prices.  Some up and some down -including some significant drops in the Medium Parcel rates and penny or increases so most other rates.

One of the main changes to interest to collectors is related to the introduction of a new international ‘Large Letter’ size and related increases to the international weight bands for Letters.

But what does this mean to collectors of Postagelabels and Post and Go Stamps  ?

With the demise of the Wincor-Nixdorf Post and Go we are left with the NCR units in the Post Office network plus the IAR units in Royal Mail operational and fixed ‘Philatelic’ locations.

NCR and IAR NVI Stamps

These have been updated to include the two new “100g Letter’ stamps for the new weight bands (replacing the previous 60g step). The collectors set has been updated accordingly.

NCR OV Stamps 

To reflect the introduction of the new International Large Letter size, new Large Letter text has been added to create new OV stamps as applicable.

These appear with a ‘LgLetter’ description and are available in the A, IS, IT and ITS versions.

Our catalogue has been updated accordingly. Please ask for a copy.

Horizon Labels 

One Horizon label has been updated. For details of this change watch this space.

RM Latest Operational Machines are not just for Stamp collectors

In an important move in the introduction of self-service automation for customer-facing services, and following on from the temporary placement of exhibition series machines in Crewe and Bradford, yesterday, 9th February saw the A series machines replaced by two new customised RM Post and Go machines, ‘M (or Mailcentre) series’ into Royal Mail’s live operation – and these are not just for Stamp Collectors!

‘M’ Series machines include additional functionality which allows ‘real’ customers to not only purchase the usual range of stamps but also now pay monies due to Royal Mail, such as ‘Postage Due’, VAT and Customs Duty.

Currently fees or charges are raised on a mail item fit into one of two categories, either :-

Postage Underpaid (These days just inland items are surcharged) where the amount of postage underpaid (or due) is payable plus a surcharge of £1 (So technically the minimum payment is £1.01 , but more typically amounts of £1.20 (£1+73p-53p) or £1.52 (£1+52p) are due.

or

Customs Duty (or more usually VAT) is due on incoming item originating from outside of the EU that has been assessed by HMRC as containing goods over the applicable VAT or Duty threshold. In this case a surcharge of £8 is payable and amounts are typically around £15- £20.

Once a customer has received the notification that a payment is due via a P4605 card, they have had, up to now, three ways to pay the amount due:-

1) Pay online at royalmail.com/feetopay and await delivery
2) Stick stamps to the card and post and await delivery
3) Visit the delivery Office and pay in cash (Staff will will stick the stamps to the card to show the amount has been paid for accounting reasons)

But now at Crewe and Bradford there is now a forth option available – namely to pay by Credit/Debit card, obtain a Post & Go receipt and then collect your item immediately on production of the payment receipt.

In order to use to use the new Post and Go facility, navigate to the required screen (Customs or Postage Due) input the amount due (As shown on the card) pay via Credit or Debit card and obtain a receipt confirming payment. Your item can then be collected from the hatch.

M series Stamps

The stamps dispensed by M series machines have the office of origin shown ; this is usual for fixed location RM kiosks.

In other respects the Kiosks offer the usual range of Post and Go stamps.

Examples of the 1st and 2nd Class stamps dispensed are shown below:-

Royal Mail have announced ( at www.royalmail.com/postandgo )that their Post and Go machines, previously only used in exibition settings are to be used in real operational, customer-facing settings over the xmas period (Not just for collectors!) The idea is likely to be to  relieve the pressure on queues and provide additional capacity for the sale of stamps.

Machines A003 and A004 are to be put into frontline service (with some slight modifications) and loaded with the ‘Winter Greenery’ stamps.

The two locations involved are

Royal Mail Crewe,

Weston Road,

CW1 6AA

and

Royal Mail Bradford North DO

Inkersley Road

Bradford

BD1 4RS

Both sites are expected to be operational from 3rd December until Late January 2015 (when the machines are scheduled to be moved to their show locations).

Rather suprisingly an ‘unoffical’ overprint of ‘2nd Class Large’ Machins bearing a  Stampex back office code line has appeared as if they originated from the Royal Mail machines at the Salisbury stamp show. However no back office facilities were provided at Salisbury and so really must be viewed as a ‘Private overprint’ produced elsewhere.

As can be seen from the image the ‘overprint’ -‘ Salsibury Stamp Show 2013’ is rather crude and appears to wander from  left to right and up and down between the stamps.

Does anyone have any further information on these ? Email Brian  Postagelabelsuk@gmx.com . This seems a rather worrying development from a collectors point of view.

At Spring Stampex 2013 , the continuing development of the Post and Go machines became very evident. Not only were the Post and Go machines for the first time located away from Royal Mail’s main stand, the offering of Instant Smilers via the Post and Go machines signals the ‘independence’ of the Post and Go machines –  ready for the “Post and Go Tour 2013.”

The first in the ‘Tour Series’ of  ‘Red White and Blue’ smiler sheet  includes a ‘venue specific’ image in ‘position 1’  (expected to change at each venue) and a choice of either an image taken on an ipad in the venue (for example in  of the gold postbox ) or a choice of pre-prepared generic images – the image shown depicts the ‘Post and Go’ generic choice.

With thanks to John McCallum via http://pmechuk.blogspot.co.uk/and a correspondent from Australia, the first DIY Post and Go stamps have been reported.

These are likely to have originated from someone who has illegally obtained ‘Blank’ (unprinted) Post and Go stamps and attempted to overprint them to look ‘real’. (although the Post Office in Devon appears to have accepted these as valid).

These are likely to be viewed very seriously by Royal Mail and I would expect an thorough investigation to be carried out with possible legal action for such a serious attempt at fraud.

Anyone with any further sightings of these items please email me at postagelabelsuk@gmx.com .