Royal Mail To Add Barcodes To Their Definitive Stamps

According to the BBC, Royal Mail to add barcodes to their definitive stamps eventually allowing personal links to be added. Is this a good idea, and does this add a new layer of interest for the collector???? https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60213179 Image from BBC website.

See this other new thread, Nick.

https://goscf.com/t/79986&whichpage=1#726160

From the post office web site:

Reinventing stamps for the future
Over the coming months, you will notice that more of our stamps will start to feature barcodes.
Following a successful national trial we will now be adding unique barcodes to all our regular 'everyday' Definitive and Christmas stamps. Each barcoded stamp will have a digital twin and the two will be connected by the Royal Mail App. The unique barcodes will facilitate operational efficiencies, enable the introduction of added security features and pave the way for innovative services for our customers.

Definitive stamps are the stamps that will be very familiar to most people. They feature the profile of HM The Queen. The barcodes match the stamp colour and sit alongside the main body of the stamp, separated by a simulated perforation line. The new barcode is an integral part of the stamp and must remain intact for the stamp to be valid.


New Barcoded Definitive Stamps
1st Class
Letter 1st Class
Large Letter
1st Class Letter barcoded stamp
1st Class Large Letter barcoded stamp


2nd Class
Letter 2nd Class
Large Letter
2nd Class Letter barcoded stamp
2nd Class Large Letter barcoded stamp
Transition to Barcoded Stamps
Non-barcoded stamps will be phased out but will remain usable until 31 January 2023. Customers are encouraged to use their non-barcoded stamps before this date. Alternatively, non-barcoded stamps can be exchanged for the new barcoded version through Royal Mail's 'Swap Out' scheme.

The 'Swap Out' scheme will open on 31 March 2022. Forms will be available via a variety of channels, including local Customer Service Points; the Royal Mail website and via our Customer Experience team. Customers will be able to use a Freepost address. Further details will be announced shortly.

You can buy the new barcoded stamps on our Shop.

Buy Barcoded Stamps now

FROM THE POST OFFICE WEB SITE

What happens if I use a non barcoded stamp after 31 January 2023?

If you post an item with a non-barcoded stamp after 31 January 2023 it will be liable to surcharge — as it will be the equivalent of it having no postage. So please either use up any non-barcoded stamps you have — or swap them out.

I sometimes think Royal Mail have lost the plot. I always thought that postage stamps were an alternative kind of currency or at any rate if you buy a stamp then you have brought access to a service. How can they suddenly stop people using stamps that have not been previously used (i.e. cashed in). Thanks for the alternative link to this subject.

They already did so in March 2021. They are rolling it out beyond the 2nd-class business sheets.

Earlier post:
https://goscf.com/t/10785&whichpage=37#686538

Explanation of how it works is in the same thread; unfortunately the German television's broadcast no longer is available.:
https://goscf.com/t/10785&whichpage=37#687044

Thanks NSK for that really interesting link. I had not seen that before.

In December, I was in Germany. I sent a postcards to a German friend and a dozen friends from other countries. At the post-office desk in the Postbank office next to Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof, I got a national stamp with a similar QR-code. The international stamps did not.

I wonder whether Royal Mail can keep to its plans. All the stamps listed are for inland use. Or has the UK not just left the EU, but also isolated itself and abolished international mail?
You can use nvi-stamps in part payment for international postage.

Thank you for posting about this. This came earlier this week and I had not seen anything like this.

Question:

What will happen with the commemorative stamps?

So far only affected issues are 1st and 2nd Machins.

Commemoratives are not, at present, impacted by this.

However, Royal Mail DOES have plans to issue barcode versions of fixed-value Machins in April, so it is possible ALL Machins definitives without barcodes will be demonetized in the next 18 months. Will have to wait and see what RM decide to do.

Do any of you think that in the near future the USPS might either do the same or perhaps demonetize all non forever stamp postage?

Anything can happen, but I don't see this happening in the USA.

Many European countries have a history of limiting the period of validity of postage, even when there is no currency change/reform.

It seems now, Barcode and QR Code is interchangeable.

The U.S. approach to postage stamps has consistently been to treat all stamps as valid for postage basically forever, no matter when they are used. This has been the case just about since the beginning of U.S. stamp issues (1847). That means no expiration dates on the value of any stamp no matter how old it is The only exception I'm familiar with is the demonitization of all stamps issued before the outbreak of the Civil War. This was done in 1861 to deprive the South of claims on federal postal services. Of course, that necessitated new stamps being issued during the war.

Given that all U.S. stamps, other than these, remain valid for postage forever, if you wanted to you could mail a letter today using unused stamps from the 19th or early 20th centuries. In fact, a few times I've received mail like that. Needless to say, the stamps were of low catalogue value, but they didn't have to be. If you really wanted to send a letter using unused higher-value stamps from the 1893 Columbian series of commemoratives or others, go right ahead. The reason is that someone paid the U.S. government money for those stamps, and the U.S. government is therefore obligated to hold up its end of the bargain to "redeem" them through postal use, no matter when you ask it to do so. This applies to currency, coins, government bonds, and so on. It's a business contract, part of the many business transactions in our economy. Relying on that contract, which in this case involves stamps that let's say your great-grandfather purchased, underpins our economy. If government could simply cancel its contracts with its citizens, who would trust the government? If your federal savings bonds could be declared worthless, would you ever buy another savings bond? If federal currency could be declared worthless at any time, would you be in the habit of saving it or spending it as quickly as you could? It's kind of a serious economic question.

It would seem that Britain's postal service does not do this. If you stockpiled old British postal stamps, thinking you'd use them in later years, you're out of luck -- except for the buyback scheme by which older postage will be traded for new barcoded postage. But what happens when they cancel the buyback system? And can you imagine someone with hundreds of sheets of old stamps hauling them off to their post office to have some clerk figure out how much postage has to be swapped for new postage stamps which he then has to haul home again? It seems, at least for a few people, like a very awkward system.

For one thing, someone in the British postal service is apparently unaware that a lot of stamp sellers use older postal stamps on mail to their customers as a thank you to them -- as they also often do in the U.S. These sellers buy these stamps at face value or even at discounted value and stockpile them. Those stamps, perhaps worth thousands of pounds, will now become worthless unless they are "swapped" for new stamps by whatever cumbersome method is required. I've already read one story where a dealer says that each year he uses well in excess of £1000 worth of stamps on his outgoing mail which he regularly buys at discounted prices, paying about 60% of their face value since they are older stamps of little dealer value, and of lower denominations (since postal rates have increased), so too cumbersome for the general public to apply so many of them. This saves him a great deal of money every year on postal costs. The new British mail scheme ends his savings completely, effectively raising his cost of doing business by at least £400 a year for every £1000 worth of postage he owns. This is effectively a "tax" on anyone with old postage they can no longer use. And it's clearly the reason for the loophole which allows "swapping" old postage stamps for new. How easy that will be to do, and how many people will do it, is unknown, but some people are going to effectively get screwed by the new system. Especially if the "swap system" gets ended at some point. Governments generally don't like leaving such systems open-ended forever. I imagine there has to be some kind of deadline for swapping old for new stamps.

What the British postal authorities appear to be trying to do is stop use of counterfeit stamps. Apparently this is a big enough problem to require changing the entire system of postage stamps permanently in this drastic way. I also wonder if this will eliminate all those "hidden" marks on so many stamps, the odd perforations, the hidden images, microprinting, color shifts, and other anti-counterfeiting tricks? Why would any of that be necessary anymore?

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