BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence

Subject: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 11:42 AM

I noticed a poster in my local Post Office showing the fancy new QR type codes alongside the regular colour & Queen (they will be collectors items) - the QR code has to be retained on the envelope - it said

But more pertinently, if you bought stamps in bulk as a hedge against inflation - use them up this Xmas. Those will be redundant, inadmissible, unusable after January 31. Special issue picture stamps (not sure which/how many) were exempt from the obsolescence.


Just in case anyone missed this gotcha from Royal Mail. We can't blame the Royal Male though.


resident experts should consult here before spouting

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: DaveRo
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 04:14 PM

The Post Office uses the word 'barcode' which seems to encompass any optically-readable pattern of stripes or dots these days

The one on the stamps is not a QR code, though people have become familiar with those during Covid - in Europe anyway - so the phrase might take over. It looks to me like a Datamatrix

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 05:07 PM

Whilst not an expert, my looking this up revealed that you can swap your stamps if you have an excess of the old sort. Absolutely not a big issue.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 08:08 PM

",,,they become worthless on 31 January 2023. Alternatively, you can swap them for barcoded versions for free using Royal Mail's 'Swap Out' scheme."

"You'll need to complete
a standard 'Swap Out' form for stamps worth up to £200,
or
a Bulk Stamp 'Swap Out' form for stamps worth more than £200."

Lots more details and links here
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/08/stamps-royal-mail-swap-out-six-months/

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 08:15 PM

If I can find any, I'll just use them up on my Christmas cards. I see that I don't have to worry about the ones I have with pictures of the Star Trek cast. I've been holding back on those as I didn't feel they were appropriate on envelopes contains cards sympathising for illness or deaths, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 02:46 AM

Absolutely not a big issue - all stamps are an "issue" if we are being so pedantic

Self adhesive stamps that are not on their backing because they have collected dust is not a big issue but an issue (in addition to their being issued) I suggest they are stuck on envelopes before Jan 1.
If you read the form (Yes I printed it out)

It is not that the returning the old stamps is much of a hassle, it is more, and the reason for the thread at all, is to inform those that haven't heard. Rather than feel superior in having read the chapter and missed out the verses. Implying that you knew it all anyway. Of course!

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: DaveRo
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 03:41 AM

I've swapped several books of stamps. I had to stick them all on paper forms - they were the old type you had to lick or wet. It reminded me of collecting Green Shield stamps.

I scanned a couple to see what the 'barcode' said:

JGB S11251018031513573440006603122101               C0D60C8FED03591F01
JGB S11251018031513573450006603122101               EAE016D9138228F401

So each one appears to be unique, presumably to prevent copying or reuse.

Apparantly this us just one of many types of 'Mailmark':
https://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/Royal-Mail-Mailmark-barcode-definition-document-September-2015.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 05:40 AM

Good grief, Dave, it's a long time since I saw a lick 'n' stick postage stamp!

To stray slightly, I often wonder, in these days of covid especially, how lick 'n' stick envelopes, often for greetings cards, are still legal...

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 06:07 AM

Lick and stick envelopes will usually only be licked by one person, so no Covid problem.
If you are concerned about shop staff having touched the envelopes, just buy them sufficiently in advance of use to allow for any bugs to die.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 06:36 AM

Aha Green Shield stamps, we rehearsed at the owner's house in Totteridge autumn 1962!!

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 06:55 AM

Only one person licked it, Nigel, but several other people might handle it within a very short time of their licking and posting it. I'm not that bothered but it's a thought.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 07:14 AM

Talk of Green Shield stamps takes me back to when I was a Saturday lad at the Victor Value supermarket in Radcliffe (who remembers them?) in the mid-60s. They gave out S&H Pink Stamps, not Green Shield, same idea...I got fifteen bob for Saturday and an extra ten bob if they wanted me for Friday night late opening. I mainly helped the butcher but I got good at boning out bacon and ham and was in charge of the bacon and cooked meats counter. I was too young to legally use those big meat-slicing machines, but blind eyes were turned...

The manager was a nit-picking ould crosspatch, but one day in July 1966 he hired a big telly from Radio Rentals and we all crowded round it to watch England win the World Cup Final. Happy days!

Tesco bought Victor Value in 1968 so that was that.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Mo the caller
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 07:24 AM

Couldn't you get a round sponge holder to moisten stamps

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Rain Dog
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 11:04 AM

"I was too young to legally use those big meat-slicing machines, but blind eyes were turned..."

Did those blind eyes belong to the previous operators?

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Sep 22 - 02:36 PM

You know the ones, the ones with big vertical very sharp rotating blades shaped like wheels. You could set them to cut different thicknesses of bacon or ham. They were quite deadly in those days of health 'n' safety not quite yet gone mad. They wouldn't make you blind but you could include a slice of finger tip in the customer's smoked streaky...

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 25 Sep 22 - 12:14 PM

"Ladies, please stop giving your children rides on the bacon slicer:
We are getting behind with our orders!"

(very old joke)

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Nov 22 - 07:55 AM

Latest news Daily Mail is that the 'deadline' for using non-barcode stamps has been extended, and that the forms for exchanging (together with a 'Freepost' envelope) will become available at the Post Office.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Nov 22 - 08:26 AM

I knew a girl who sat on a bacon slicer. Disaster...

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Nov 22 - 08:58 AM

Was she related to the one who sat in a bathful of glue?

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Nov 22 - 09:17 AM

Sorry Steve. I'm stuck on that one.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Nov 22 - 10:37 AM

Or the glow-worm which landed on an electric fan,

De-lighted!

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Nov 22 - 01:06 PM

:-D

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Senoufou
Date: 17 Nov 22 - 03:07 AM

In the early Fifties, I used to love watching our local grocer (Mrs Lawrence) thumping a large hunk of bacon onto the spikes of the slicer. My mother chose the thickness of the cut by pointing at the range of red lines, then Mrs Lawrence turned on the cutting wheel and slid the machine backwards and forwards. She received each slice on the palm of her hand and the job was done.
She also used 'butter pats' to shape up a lump of butter for a customer.
I don't like changes, and these new stamps seem a bit silly to me.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Nov 22 - 12:01 PM

A childhood memory .... In the butchers' up the hill, they had a wonderful bacon-slicing machine: the motor not only turned the cutting wheel, but also operated a crank underneath to somehow move the meat backwards and forwards, with the crank just at eye level for a seven-year-old to see and wonder at. All the fun of the fair, without having to visit the fairground.

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 17 Nov 22 - 12:59 PM

My mum used to take me into a grocer's that had a bacon slicer. I hated being there when it was being used. I just wanted to be out of the shop as quickly as possible before someone lost all of their fingers.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 03:33 AM

Did your grocer's have huge hessian sacks of things like prunes, sultanas, demerara sugar etc sitting around the small shop? Mrs Lawrence used a metal scoop to remove whatever one asked for and weigh it on her 'basic' scales. I loved the different smells in there.
Our wet-fish monger wore wooden clogs. And the butcher hacked away with a massive cleaver to cut off a chop/bit of lamb for my mum.
All these things seemed so much more interesting than today's pre-packed stuff in supermarkets.
And old stamps seem more interesting than these techy things with some sort of code attached. What's it for anyway? (I don't possess a fobile moan, so if that's what it's about, it's no use to me!)

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 04:08 AM

Morrisons are pretty good for the butchers and fishmongers on their "Market Street". Some will also dish out stuff into your own containers to save on packaging. But I would say that wouldn't I. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: UK regular postage stamps - obsolescence
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 18 Nov 22 - 10:44 AM

> these techy things with some sort of code attached

I'm a techie, so (surprise) I took a close look:* the dots differed slightly from stamp to stamp in the same book. Either they're serial numbers, or they say whether they're first or second class citizens, or possibly both; either way, they're for the machines to read, not us poor human beans. At least those strangely-shaped numbers along the bottom edge of cheques were intended to be human-compatible as well as machine-readable.

* I can't scan them: I'm not a camera phone.