Europhilex launch for updated ‘precanceled’ Horizon Labels

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 Imperforate Gold Machin Horizon Labels Go Live today!

The ‘Type 2’ Gold Machin labels went live today, in a single branch trial at Old Street Crown Office in London.
These labels are as ‘Type 1’ (with psudeo-perforations) but with imperforate edges and rounded corners. It is believed that these have been issued in response to feedback regarding the ‘peelablity’ of the perforated labels. The next stage will their introduction at Chesterfield Branch Office, next week.

The missing Postage Label Identifier RPR!

One of the rarest of the current Horizon Postage Label Identifiers is ‘RPR’  – This is only ever used for items being returned under a “Packet Post Returns” Licence where exceptionally the sender has requested the ‘Recorded Signed For’ service – so the label only has a fixed value of 75p (74p from 5/4/10) (77p from 4/4/11).

The other oddity of note is that this service results in the item having two barcodes affixed- one for the Packet Post Return Licence service and one for the Recorded Signed-For service.

This identifier was discontinued on 17th April 2011 and replaced on 18th April 2011 by the ‘RSF’ identifier.