As we enter Advent the Hytech machines at Camden Pop-Up shop have a updated ‘Date identifier’ – with the Text String ‘rolling over’ to ‘ADGB12’ on the 1st of December.

See post below for detail of the Hytech ‘Next generation’ Text String. Originally the Text String was ANGB12 and now is ADGB12. This means the MA12 Hytech Christmas Robins with a ANGB12 identifier are now obsolete.

The first ADGB12 Session number for A3 was 226 and A4 was 225.

In a new venture for Post Office and Royal Mail, a totally new type of Post Office (Similar to ‘Pop- Up Shops’ previously seen in shopping malls up and down the country at the lead up to Christmas)  opened last week in the very busy Camden Market,  London NW1. This new branch is called ‘Camden Christmas Post Shop’.

This new outlet is offering selected items from the Royal Mail ‘Collectibles’ range ,  personalised  Christmas 2012  Instant ‘Smilers’ and, more importantly from a Post and Go collectors point of view, it has given rise to the first outing of the brand new Royal Mail ‘Hytech’ Next-Generation  machines No. ‘A3’ and ‘A4’.

This new branch offers full Post Office ‘Postal’ facilities where purchasers can post their gift  items  purchased from the shop or elsewhere worldwide.

The Post Office is open seven days a week from 10am to 8 pm every day apart from Sundays when it opens at 11am. Machines A3 and A4 are visually identical to those previously seen at Stampex – and appear to function the same, although, as they are in a full functioning Post Office branch rather than in an Exhibition setting , they do not have any overprints.

It is worth noting that this is the first time Hytech units have been  primarily positioned for Post Office customers-  posting mail specifically  Christmas cards and gifts– and not for stamp collectors purposes.

Each of the twin-reel Hytech machines are loaded with Christmas (MA12) Robin stamps as well as Machin Stamps – which for the specialist gives rise to two totally new and exclusive products to this Branch – Hytech Machin ‘Worldwide 40g’ which have not been previously issued, as when un-overprinted Hytech Machins previously appeared at Stampex , the WW40g had yet to be issued.

Additionally, this is the only outlet where ‘Hytech Christmas Robins’ (MA12) , printed in strips of six,will be available, (As these are not expected to appear at  Spring Stampex 2013).

For Postmark Collectors the Datestamps in use at the Post Office are ‘Equipment Team Temporary’ No. ’32’ and  No. ’42’.

Items are available from our Ebay shop here http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170953368569

Today the Christmas 2012 Re-issue of the Post and Go Robins have started to appear in Post Office Branches.

They have, for the first time for Post and Go stamps, a in-built ‘Security code’ to identify them from the 2010 variant and the future 2013 printing.

View Post and Go Locations in the UK in a full screen map.

View Post and Go Locations in the UK in a text list.

View Post and Go Locations in the UK in a full screen map.

View Post and Go Locations in the UK in a text list.

Once the Perth Exhibition at the Dewers Centre, Perth had closed its doors the Hytech Next Generation ‘Twins’, machines A1 and A2 were moved to the foyer of the Queen’s Hotel, Perth.

The Overprint applied to the Union Flag and Machin head stamps did not change- but the receipt was updated to reflect the new location.

It is understood that there are significantly fewer stamps and strips produced with this receipt and it is set to be a rarity to those collecting the current ‘overprinted’ range of post and go stamps.

Royal Mails ‘Next Generation’ Post & Go kiosks Numbers A1 and A2, which previously made their debut at Stampex in October, today commenced their tour and were in operation at  the first day of the Association of Scottish Philatelic Societies’ National Exhibition in 2012 in Perth, Scotland.

Both machines (A1 and A2) were configured to dispense both ‘Union flag’ and ‘Machin Head’ post and go stamps with a unique overprint:-

PERTH 2012

19-22 OCTOBER

No back office facilities ere available for pre or bulk order- the stamps are not available from Royal Mail via Mail Order – the only way of obtaining these stamps was to attend the show.

The data string has been updated to ‘AOGB A1-000001-01’  – The ‘O’ representing October .

For Autumn Stampex 2012 , Royal Mail unveiled its new ‘Hytech V2’ Hytech Post and Go kiosks. These are the culmination of the various trial and tests carried out over the last four shows has resulted in a new design of kiosk that can be deployed to various locations- shows etc. The kiosks were sited at the rear of the hall on the upper level – which did cause some intermittent service problems due to mobile signal strength issues (which these units rely on to authorise card purchases) during the show.

The interior arrangement of the rolls of labels is illustrated in Fig. 3. The third, centre roll of labels produced customer receipts.
At these machines, payments could only be made using a credit card. This arrangement dispenses of the need for complicated cash and change handling within the machine.
Two further machines, designated here as B1 and B2, were located in the back office of the RM stand. Each machine carried only one roll of P&G labels. Those dispensed by these machines were sold over the counter by Royal Mail staff.
During the period of the show, three different label designs were made available — Pigs, Cattle and Flags. The flag design was formally available with the Diamond Jubilee overprint (but see later). The allocation of label designs to the four machines is given in Table 1 below.

The content in machines A1 and A2 changed day to day to give maximum opportunity to customers. The availability of labels is shown in Table 2 below.

P = Pigs; C = Cattle;  F = Flags;  DJ = Diamond Jubilee overprint

It appears that Post Office Ltd have been looking at ways of improving the “customer journey” when a “Certificate of Posting” is required when using the Post and Go machines in a Post Office. In most cases you have to visit the ‘Fastdrop’ counter and have the barcode added (Where required) and  CoP datestamped.  In a move to improve this,  Branch staff in the public area in selected Post Offices  have been issued with ‘Mini’ datestamps so that receipts can be validated quickly and easily without the need to visit the counter.  Uniquely these are inscribed with the Branch name, Stamp Number (1,2,3 etc) and the words ‘Post and Go’ .

So far these have been seen in use  at Clapham Common, Cambridge and High Street, Croydon and in both Circular and Square versions.