Nice Guardian Article On Royal Mail Devaluing Non Bar- Or QR-Coded Regular Stamps

A nice article came out today (Wednesday Oct 26, 2022) in The Guardian by a freelance, non-collector Dale Berning Sawa entitled "My Stash of Old Stamps is Beautiful. Why Make Them Unnecessarily Obsolete?"

Concerns her use on correspondence and aesthetic appreciation for old stamps. And her lament that the Royal Mail is devaluing regular stamps in favor of those new ones with bar or QRcodes.

It was a very pleasant read with my morning coffee (here in the US).

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...e-royal-mail

The sound of common sense,
..so refreshing.

Given that the stamps in question are primarily Machins, I'm actually giving three cheers. . Royal Mail hasn't yet sent me replacements for the ones I sent in, so my views may change.

Thank you, I enjoyed the article. I was not aware that the UK was doing this.

You can continue to send collages of valid old stamps. Essentially, the writer is complaining she cannot plaster her envelopes or postcards with different coloured stamps of the exact same design. Instead, she must use pictorial (special) stamps or use the same coloured stamps of the same design that are much bigger and have an added barcode.

edit; another difference is that the basic values are now printed as kind of negatives of the old stamps. The higher values and NVIs that cover almost any rate are still printed in solid colours.

I assume that they are making this change because they are moving to improved mail stream sorting and handling technologies and cost savings. As time moves forward getting replacement parts and keeping older equipment in good repair gets more difficult and sometimes becomes impossible.

If given a choice, would folks have preferred to stick with more costly and outdated mail handling equipment?
Don

The two stamps at the top right will no longer be valid. These two will be replaced by a stamp similar to that at the top left. For values over £1, the solid colour even remains.

The stamp on the bottom envelope differs from the lamented old stamps by size and the added barcode at right.

@Don,

as explained in the previous threads about these barcode stamps. It is an added security measure. Each stamp has a unique barcode. Once scanned by the new letter sorting machines, the barcode is withdrawn. Any forgery will have either a barcode that does not exist or one that is issued and can only be used once. So, you better use your forged stamp before the original has been used to let it pass the scanner.

Of course, before the scanners have been installed at all mail sorting centres it will not work flawlessly.

The current security measures did not deter forgers. Royal Mail is rather late in adopting this security measure. France and Germany have had it in place for some time already.

Understood, it is meant to prevent loss of income.

So if given a choice, would folks have preferred to stick with more costly and outdated mail handling equipment? In other words, if the postal system had polled ALL postal patrons and asked, "we can stick with the ways things are but we will have to increase the cost of postage by XX to cover the cost of lost income or we can implement a new solution which means using old postage becomes impossible"; would the postal patrons have chosen to pay more on every mailed item to be able to use their saved postage?
Don

In terms of an aesthetic choice, I suspect that 99% of people couldn't care less about the swapping of old stamps for new or the addition of security barcoding. Had the stamps simply been demonetised without compensation, that would be different.

While the explanation of the change is to prevent use forged stamps going forward this is yet an example of punishing the law abiding citizens due to actions of the outlaws, in this case stamp forgers. It also has a wonderful "unintended consequence (yeah, right)" of an out right money grab by Royal Mail by devaluing the previously sold and unused stamps. Now if a mint for mint face value exchange was adopted, that would be fair and of course a fantasy wish.

It is well understood from where the forged stamps originate, yet there is no foreign government actually going after the offenders. May as well start to contact China to see if world wide terms of surrender to them can begin negotiations.

Er. It doesn't devalue the withdrawn stamps. There is a mint-to-mint exchange.

^ Exactly that. No one is being punished and collectors are rewarded with new stamps and new technology.

That is good to know as well as the proper way to have handle the situation.

It is also a model that should be used on this side of the pond. Rather, the USPS has reduced or stopped the prior ability to even make exchanges as provided previously on for example, obsolete rate postal stationery. Of course until the USA has the political backbone to attack the root of the counterfeit problem, no other country will. I guess that forged stamp income still adds up to a noticeable ten percent for the Big Guy's pocket change.

Very interesting.

Thank you for sharing jleb1979

Yup, and if the government is not taking on China hard on fentanyl it is highly unlikely that postage stamps have a chance of tightening anyone's knickers.

Surprised that the UK is trying something to prevent the losses instead of passing on the losses to consumers. That is a novel approach.