United Kingdom Of Great Britain And Northern Ireland – Machins – Greetings Card Miniature Sheets

Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheets DMS2/MFQ1

In 1994, the high street chemists Boots sold greetings cards with a stamp. Boots had approached Royal Mail to design a stamp sheet to be sold with a greetings card in a ready-to-post package. Boots sold the sheet shrink-wrapped with a greetings card.

The miniature sheet measured 85 mm x 43 mm. It contained a single first-class stamp with selvedge all around. The selvedge had diagonal rouletting from the bottom corners to the top centre. This allowed folding the miniature sheet around the corner of the greetings card. The stamp showed at the front of the package set within a triangular selvedge.

Above the stamp, within the triangular area between the rouletting appeared the blue oval Boots logo. To the right of the stamp appeared the words "FREE / First class / stamp / included / in the price". On the sides of the miniature sheet that would form the flaps of the folded sheet appeared information on the validity of the stamp and a Royal Mail legend. All printing on the selvedge was in deep blue.

Royal Mail made an unfolded version of the miniature sheet available to collectors.


August 1994, Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheet [Deegam DMS2, Connoisseur MFQ1]

Questa printed the miniature sheet in lithography. It printed the first-class stamp in the standard 'flame' colour. The value is type 1 and the head type A2. The stamp had two four-millimetres wide phosphor bars with yellow fluor additive [Deegam AY, Connoisseur A(C)] on each side . The stamps were perforated 15x14 with an ellipse on each side. These ellipses had the 'rounded' shape of a rugby ball [Deegam EQC2, Connoisseur ER]. Questa printed the sheets on a non-phosphorescent paper free of optical brightening agents [OFNP] that had a cream colour and polyvinyl-alcohol (PVAl) gum.


Two side phosphor bars with yellow fluor additive

The stamp also appeared in booklets. Stamps fully detached from the miniature sheet can be distinguished from booklet stamps. A single will have torn perforation tips on all four sides.

Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheets Reprint DMS2A/MFQ2

The original 'Boots' miniature sheet was popular with collectors and soon sold out. To meet demand from Boots and collectors, Royal Mail released a reprint of the miniature sheet in October 1994.


October 1994, Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheet [Deegam DMS2A, Connoisseur MFQ2]

The reprinted miniature sheet contained a stamp with different elliptical perforations from the original version. These are slightly flatter at the sides [Deegam EQC1, Connoisseur ES] than that of the original version. The height of the reprint was about a millimetre less than that of the original miniature sheet.


August 1994 [Deegam DMS2, Connoisseur MFQ1] and October 1994 [Deegam DMS2A, Connoisseur MFQ2] Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheets

Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheets Reprint DMS2/MFQ2A

Part of the reprint was on off-white, cream paper. Other than the difference in the colour of the paper, this sheet and the stamp contained in it are similar to that on white paper.


October 1994, Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheet [Deegam DMS2, Connoisseur MFQ2A]

The difference in the colour of the paper is best seen from the back of the miniature sheet.


October 1994 white paper [Deegam DMS2A, Connoisseur MFQ2] and cream paper [Deegam DMS2, Connoisseur MFQ2A] Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheets

Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheets Phosphor with Blue Fluor Additive DMS3/MFQ3

The strong reaction of the yellow fluor additive confused the readers of the mail sorting machines that could detect both phosphor and fluor. In 1995, Royal Mail introduced a new phosphor ink that reacted both to shortwave and longwave ultraviolet light. The machines did not require any fluor to be added to the phosphor ink to detect the bars. However, for reasons of quality control, a neutral 'blue' fluor was added. From July 1995, Royal Mail released stamps with the old phosphor that reacted to shortwave ultraviolet light only with the blue fluor additive.

The 'Boots' miniature sheets first appeared with the blue fluor additive in August (Deegam) or September (Connoisseur) 1995. These miniature sheets are only known with folded flaps from the Boots greetings card packages.



August 1995, Boots Greetings Card Miniature Sheet with Blue Fluor Additive [Deegam DMS3, Connoisseur MFQ3]

Questa continued to print the miniature sheet in lithography. The first-class stamp had the standard 'flame' colour. The value is type 1 and the head type A2. The stamp had two four-millimetres wide shortwave phosphor bars with blue fluor additive [Deegam AB, Connoisseur B(C)] on each side. The stamps were perforated 15x14 with an ellipse on each side. These ellipses had the 'flatter' shape [Deegam EQC1, Connoisseur ES]. Questa printed the sheets on a non-phosphorescent paper free of optical brightening agents [OFNP] that had a white colour and polyvinyl-alcohol (PVAl) gum.


Two side phosphor bars with blue fluor additive