GB New Issue Concorde Set

The UK post office have announced today the issue of a concord aircraft stamp set of 8. Should suit GB Collectors or aircraft thematic collectors.

The announcement:

https://shop.royalmail.com/special-...ues/concorde

Yes - noticed these be8ng advertised in my post office yesterday.

The miniature sheet reproduces the original 1969 (pre-decimal) Concorde designs.

…demonstrating the difference between graphic design and stock photography. Ou sont les Kauffers et Man Rays d'antan?

I agree with Flightle_Bee that there's nothing of interest in the design (or rather non-design) of the new stamps, which makes me wonder why there are eight of them, all prepaying the same postal rate. The inclusion of a draft design for one of the original set of three makes the miniature sheet moderately appealing, but even the original designs of 1969 weren't particularly attractive, in my opinion, and the glaring difference between the Goaman style and the Gentleman style of design ensures that they don't make a coherent set.

If I had a specialist interest in aviation, I'd buy the PHQ cards, which are cheaper than the stamps and bigger.

They need to have a certain face value to become economically viable. Philatelic sales remain an important source of revenue.

It was very considerate of Royal Mail to stop issuing sets with eight values of which six did not serve any purpose. But that did not mean they could bring the price of a set down to that of a second-class and a first-class stamp.

I see the designer took the term "face value" literally.

They could have memorialized the 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590 crash. Probably not in keeping with the "vanilla" theme.

Royal Mail commemorating the a purely French incident? I do not see that happening. Crashes, rarely, are commemorated by issuing stamps. Why commemorate a foreign one?

NSK: Wouldn't one 1st, one 2nd, one 1st large and one 2nd large, with a se-tenant pair for the current postage rate to France (which would be relevant to the origins of le Concorde) amount to a similar total price, while making the issue more interesting to philatelists and less obviously a rip-off? And would it be intolerably expensive to make the stamps of such a set as I propose significantly different from each other in appearance, perhaps by something as simple as a coloured border corresponding to the colours of the definitive stamps for the same rates?

There is also a miniature sheet.

Yes, with current international tariffs a pair of Worldwide stamps at GBP 3.40 a piece would get the price up. But only idiots like I cough up GBP 34 to send ten girlies postcards, when in the UK. A lot of Royal Mail outlets do not even have international definitive stamps.

No one buys the large or international stamps. Which would result in retailers ignoring the stamps and the set becoming 100% philatelic and an utter rip-off.

Let's be honest. There is no operational requirement for these "special stamp" wallpapers of which more are issued every year when mail volumes decrease every year.

Royal Mail started the year with a set of stamps commemorating an American series. When challenged that in their third-world-country policy of milking thematic collectors they had become so desperate they were celebrating foreign stuff, the only thing they could come up with was 'but ... uh ... many of the leads are played by British actors.'

Now, they are commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of an aeroplane that does not exist and that had been a failure from the minute it was put into service. Its impact on global aviation has been zero. It died an agonizing death after some thirty years when it had become so unsafe its only use was as a manned ballistic missile.

The whole commemorative issuing policy of Royal Mail is a rip off. PostNL with its stamps you, only, can buy in sheetlets of five or ten, frequently in a single design, is even worse.

Stamp issuers in general are now a cynical bunch. Truth be told, in today's world traditional stamps aren't even necessary for the postal systems writ large to function. Unless your in the remote Amazon you are 99.999 % connected and don't really need to go buy a paper square with a design on it in order to mail something that really doesn't need to be paper because you can do it electronically instead. Just like the eight-track I know that sooner than later issuing stamps will be a nostalgic memory.

With PostNL, you can go online, buy "postage" and receive a code to write on the mail item.
Indeed: no requirement for a stamp or sticker.

I can't find anything to disagree with in NSK's or rogdcam's comments. All three of us are unenthusiastic about what we see as exploitation by issuers of superfluous stamps, and none of us can see a good reason for a Concorde celebration.

But my favourite GB stamp dealer is advertising the Concorde issue as if it's an important and exciting event, and goes so far as to distinguish the MS with and without a barcode in the margin (at the same price), so there must be people out there who want to collect such things with some degree of specialisation.

Who are these collectors, and why aren't they explaining to us that we're wrong?