Fact Hunt

Post Offices and Post Boxes

If you think you have an interesting Post Office, no matter how big or small, or unusual Post Box why not e-mail me a copy, with brief details of location, so that I can create a gallery of these rarities! Any received will be placed on a Gallery Page - see example scanned in from a recent issue of Royal Mail's Philatelic Bulletin.

E-Mail - world.stamps@ntlworld.com

The 2003 Royal Mail Yearbook

Twenty years ago Royal Mail launched a new product, the Yearbook, bringing an added dimension and a fresh insight to the year's stamps.

The 20th edition is something quite special, and the product of a great deal of thought.

Since its introduction in 1984, the Yearbook has proved to be the ideal and luxury home for the year's special stamps. As with any good idea, it has been copied, and now similar year books are produced by postal administrations around the world. Royal Mail has decided to make this, its 20th Yearbook, something which is even more special, and a great deal of thought has gone into every single aspect.

First there is the slipcase: on the front appear the figures 20 made up of Yearbooks from the past 20 years. To create the effect the Yearbooks were photographed on a glass plate from above. The back of the slipcase continues the idea with the figures 03, cleverly combining Yearbook 20 with the year 2003. The cover of the Yearbook itself is finished in a distinguished dark grey, with the '20' from the slipcase repeated in blind embossing.

Source of article;
British Philatelic Bulletin Volume 41 Number 3 November 2003

Orders now being taken for The 2003 Royal Mail Year Book.

Tapling Centenary

ONE of the world's greatest philatelic collections - The Tapling Collection, donated by 19th century first-class cricketer and MP Thomas Keay Tapling - has been on display for 100 years at the British Library.

The Tapling collection - conservatively valued at £10 million - is one of the treasures of the British Library's Philatelic Collections containing many rare and unique stamps. It is a world collection covering the first 50 years of the postage stamp. It was the starting point of the Library's philatelic collections, now numbering over 8,000,000 items and considered among the world's most important. Tapling bequeathed his collection to the nation when he died in 1891, aged 35, and it first went on show on October 5 1903.

The British Library's Philatelic Collections are on display seven days a week, admission free. Further information is available from The British Library, Philatelic Collections, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB.
Telephone 020 7412 7635, fax 7780,
e-mail:philatelic@bl.uk
or
www.bl.uk/collections/philatelic.html

What is a Postmark?

A postmark is an official mark applied by, or on behalf of, a postal services provider to items of mail. Postmarks are most commonly used by Royal Mail to cancel postage stamps affixed to items of mail; principally to ensure that the stamps are not re-used.

Postmarks are also applied to items of mail that do not bear any stamps at all but instead have postage printed on them to show that the appropriate rate of postage has been paid. Items such as this are known collectively as 'preprinted postal stationery'.

Postmarks are also known as 'cancels', 'cancellations', 'obliterations' or 'hand-stamps'. Postmarks used by Royal Mail may contain words or devices at Royal Mail's discretion. However, postmarks always include a date and corresponding post town to give an indication of when and where a particular item of mail was posted or sorted.

Royal Mail only applies postmarks to genuine items of mail. This means that any item submitted for postmarking should conform in all respects with postal service conditions: it should be addressed and bear at least an amount of postage appropriate to the postal service being provided.

Re-Produced from ‘All About Postmarks’ – The Royal mail Guide to Postmarking Services – Summer 2003