Classic Locomotives of Northern Ireland

Today Royal Mail has issued a miniature sheet on the theme of Classic Locomotives of Northern Ireland. This follows on from 2011’s Classic Locomotives of England and 2012’s Classic Locomotives of Scotland.

Working in collaboration with railway expert Professor Colin Divall of the National Railway Museum, and Northern Irish railway expert Norman Johnston, Brian Delaney of Delancy Design Consultants, trawled through thousands of photographs to find period photos of steam locomotives in Northern Ireland. The four chosen are:

1st Class – UTA Class W No.103. ‘Thomas Somerset’ with a Belfast-bound up express between the two tunnels at Downhill, west of Castlerock c1950.

78p – UTA SG3 Class No. 35. The SG3 Class locomotive shunts wagons at Portadown in 1963.

88p – Peckett No. 2. Peckett No. 2 reverses wagons into the British Aluminium Works at Larne in 1937.

£1.28 – CDRJC Class 5 No. 4. The Class 5 locomotive Meenglas shunts a carriage at Strabane in 1959

The Classic Locomotives of Northern Ireland miniature sheet and other stamp products are available from Post Offices across the UK, online at www.royalmail.com/classiclocomotives, and by phone on 08457 641 641.

Countdown to Sotheby’s: Rare and colourful – the King Edward VIII accession issue

On 11 July the British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) will be selling 191 lots of surplus, duplicate philatelic material at Sotheby’s auction house. The proceeds of the sale will support the significant fundraising efforts currently being undertaken by the BPMA to deliver an important new postal museum and archive in Central London. In this blog Julia Lee, Assistant Editor at Stamp Magazine gives her thoughts on the auction.

I’m very excited about the Sotheby’s sale. It will be the first major sale I’ve been to since the Sir Gawaine Baillie sale, and I can’t wait to see what some of this material goes for. And, of course, to write screaming headlines about it.

The BPMA asked me to pick an item to talk about, and while the journalist in me wants to highlight the most expensive, it’s the King Edward VIII 2 1/2d registration sheet that I’d buy if I had the chance.

Lot 18: King Edward VIII registration block of 48 (2½d value, blue), estimated at £100,000-120,000.

In fact, King Edward VIII helped me get the job as Assistant Editor on Stamp Magazine. ‘What happened with his stamps?’ I wondered in the interview.

Now I know the answer. A set of four stamps was issued in September 1936, at a time when, even though there was a voluntary press blackout on King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson‘s relationship, the General Post Office must have known a constitutional crisis was looming. In fact, three months later, in December, the GPO was asked by the Cabinet Office to bug the King’s phones.

The stamps’ simplicity and the very obvious break with the previous florid tradition appeals to me. They’re also very much of their time, with the clean styling of head, crown and value.

The 2½d bright blue registration sheet makes a real impact on the page. We didn’t have space to put it in our June issue, but I wish we had. It’s a great colour – far better than any bistre or olive-green!

Detail of Lot 18: King Edward VIII registration block of 48 (2½d value, blue), estimated at £100,000-120,000.

And while all postal history of any kind tells a story, Edward VIII’s references a very specific period in British history. Almost anyone you show the stamps to will grasp their significance immediately and ask you whether or not they were issued.

Like all the best stamps, it provides an easy way to suck people into the historical and social stories philatelists know are lying under the surface of our hobby.

Please visit Sotheby’s sale page to find out more about the lots on offer. And don’t forget to follow Stamp Magazine on Twitter!

Postal Mischief podcast

In April we invited the writer, broadcaster, artist and musician David Bramwell to the BPMA to give a talk on the history of postal mischief. This turned out to be a fascinating and highly entertaining event, looking at the work of key players in this field including the ‘King of Mail Art’ Ray Johnson, Victorian prankster Reginald Bray and musician Genesis P.Orridge, who inadvertently changed the postal laws (owing to the ‘colourful’ nature of his homemade postcards).

Colourful mail art referenced in David Bramwell’s talk.

David also shared his own exploits in mail art, which saw him and a friend post unusual objects to each other – much to the amusement of local Post Office and Royal Mail staff.

Post Office staff were amused when this set of false teeth came in to be posted!

You can now listen to or download David Bramwell’s talk as a podcast via our website, iTunes or SoundCloud. And if David has inspired you to engage in some postal mischief do let us know about it!

A tropical leaf which was posted to David Bramwell.

Find out about our upcoming talks and other public events on the Events page of our website.

Queens’ anniversaries

This June not only marks the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation on 2 June 1953 but also 175 years since another female British monarch was crowned; the young Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom on 28 June 1838. Both queens have celebrated a Diamond Jubilee and are the United Kingdom’s longest serving monarchs – a remarkable achievement, which is also reflected in the eventful periods that mark their reigns spanning over decades of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Victoria oversaw a whole era of innovation, which was particularly true in postal affairs. The world’s first postage stamp, The Penny Black, was issued during her reign on 6 May 1840 and featured the young queen’s portrait.

The Penny Black and “Machin” stamp designs.

Since Queen Elizabeth II’s ascension to the throne in 1952, many ground-breaking changes have taken place in every part of British life. In stamp design, the Queen’s head was almost removed from pictorial stamps but finally a new timeless and classic design was finally commissioned for definitive stamps: the “Machin stamp”, featuring Queen Elizabeth II’s effigy. Based on the white cameo relief created by Arnold Machin this iconic design has been reproduced on stamps over 200 billion time since 1965.

To commemorate these two extraordinary anniversaries, the British Postal Museum & Archive Shop is now offering a unique set of Wedgwood Jasperware plates featuring the two classic portraits of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II from stamp design. A Black Basalt plate shows Queen Victoria’s portrait from The Penny Black, and a Portland Blue dish features Queen Elizabeth II’s image from the “Machin Head”. The plates are 11cm in diameter with a white wreath of laurel leaves on the border and come beautifully presented in a Wedgwood box. You can now purchase this ideal souvenir of the coronation anniversaries in 2013 as a set for £17.50 from the BPMA online shop (plus P&P).

Wedgwood Jasperware Set.

Royal Portraits

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Coronation of Her Majesty The Queen, Royal Mail has unveiled a special stamp issue featuring a collection of some of the finest ever portraits of The Queen, including a brand new painted portrait; the first Royal Mail has commissioned of the monarch.

The six Royal Portraits stamps, issued 30 May 2013.

The painting is the result of three especially convened sittings with The Queen for the artist, Nicky Philipps, that took place in the Chinese Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace in the late autumn of 2012. The Queen is dressed in the Order of the Garter robes.

Portrait of Her Majesty The Queen by Nicky Philipps, specially commissioned by Royal Mail.

Nicky painted a double portrait of Princes William and Harry in 2009, which is displayed in the National Portrait Gallery. She was selected for the Royal Mail commission after research and consultation with the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Mail is gifting the portrait to the Royal Collection.

The Queen’s Coronation took place on 2 June 1953 following her accession on 6 February 1952.

The other five stamps feature; study for The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II by Terence Cuneo, 1953; Portrait by Andrew Festing, 1999; Portrait by Pietro Annigoni, 1955; Portrait by Sergei Pavlenko, 2000 and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II by Richard Stone, 1992.

Study for The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II by Terence Cuneo, 1953 – 2nd Class.

Portrait by Nicola Jane Philipps (Nicky), 2013 – 1st Class.

Portrait by Andrew Festing, 1999 – 78p.

Portrait by Pietro Annigoni, 1955 – 88p.

Portrait by Sergei Pavlenko, 2000 – £1.28.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II by Richard Stone, 1992 – £1.88.

The Royal Portraits stamps are now available from 9,000 Post Offices across the UK, online at www.royalmail.com/royalportraits, and by phone on 08457 641 641.

Countdown to Sotheby’s: Tides of change, the King George V “Seahorse” issues

On 11 July the British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) will be selling 191 lots of surplus, duplicate philatelic material at Sotheby’s auction house. The proceeds of the sale will support the significant fundraising efforts currently being undertaken by the BPMA to deliver an important new postal museum and archive in Central London. In this blog Harry Huskisson, communications manager at the BPMA explains why the King George V “Seahorse” Issues are his favourite item from the sale.

I cannot admit to being an expert when it comes to the technical ins and outs of stamps. As fresh meat to the philatelic scene knowing the difference between perforate and imperforate is pretty much as good as it gets.

But that doesn’t mean stamps don’t interest me, even if I wouldn’t class myself as a philatelist. What amazes me is their design and the stories they can tell – the implicit or explicit moment in time that they represent. For both those reasons I’ve picked the George V Seahorse issue as my stamp of choice from the lots on offer at Sotheby’s on July 11.

Lot 7: King George V, 1934. Re-engraved set of 3 marginal singles (2s6d example). Estimated at £5,000-£6,000.

Even at first glance it’s hard to ignore the sheer beauty, complexity and power of this stamp. Purely on an aesthetic level you can’t fail to appreciate the intricacies of the design and the hours the engraver must have spent bent double perfecting each individual element.

But what I love most is the powerful history this stamp can tell. Although the lots on sale date from 1915-1934, the “Seahorse” Issues first appeared in 1913, and appear to give an interesting insight into the national psyche during a period of rapid change and threat to the British Empire. The stamps picture Britannia all-powerful, defiant and in command of the turbulent sea. First produced at a time of heightened Anglo-German naval tension and major advancements in maritime technology, it represents a Britain that is either oblivious to – or desperately trying to hide the realisation of – what lies just around the corner, the cataclysm of mechanised warfare and the beginning of the end as the world’s greatest colonial power.

In my opinion, it is a unique insight into a country making a concerted effort to portray itself in a certain light to its subjects and its rivals, perhaps not completely unaware but neither completely aware of the shifting tides on the European continent. It screams power, and almost seems to goad its nearest rivals with its overt reference to naval might. Affixed to packages disseminated across the globe from the hub of the Empire not just throughout the First World War but up to the outbreak of the Second World War, this stamp would have been seen further afield than the British colonies, and could even be seen as a small piece of propaganda.

This stamp does not, perhaps, lend much to the arguments around Empire and Britain’s position on the world stage during the first half of the 20th Century, but it does offer a unique insight, as does so much in the BPMA’s collection, into Britain’s social history.

Lot 4: Complete sheet of the 1923 Bradbury Wilkinson 10s ‘Seahorse’ design, printed on ‘Joynson’ paper. Estimated at £100,000-120,000, it is extremely rare since no other examples exist on the philatelic market.

Detail of Lot 4 (above).

Please visit Sotheby’s sale page to find out more about the lots on offer.

Historic Duplicate Stamp Sale to Benefit New Home for The British Postal Museum & Archive

• Sotheby’s will stage an historic auction featuring duplicate stamps from the British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA)
• Important sale, estimated by Sotheby’s to bring in excess of £5 million, will support a spectacular new home for the British Postal Museum & Archive, set to open in early 2016
• State-of-the-art centre will represent an exciting addition to London’s cultural landscape, showcasing the BPMA’s world-class collections and celebrating a unique aspect of British heritage
• New museum will serve as a key cultural hub as part of a major regeneration scheme in Camden & Islington

On 11th July 2013 Sotheby’s will stage an historic auction featuring surplus duplicate stamps from the British Postal Museum & Archive. The auction will provide essential funds for a state-of-the-art new home for the BPMA, representing an exciting addition to London’s cultural landscape when it opens in 2016.

Visualisation of BPMA’s New Centre at Calthorpe House.

New Home for Britain’s Postal History

Described by Mayor of London Boris Johnson as “a national treasure of global importance”, the BPMA is the leading resource for all aspects of British postal heritage. It cares for the visual and written records of 400 years of British postal, social and design history, comprising over 60,000 artefacts and 2.5 miles of archives. Together, the collections and archive tell a fascinating human story of British communication, industry and innovation, illuminating and celebrating a unique and integral part of the nation’s heritage.

Under a scheme endorsed by the Government and backed by Britain’s leading heritage organisations, the BPMA is planning a new Postal Museum and Archive to provide a first class home for its archive and collections, which are currently held in storage and largely inaccessible to the general public. The new centre will be situated in Calthorpe House, in the London Borough of Camden, adjoining the country’s oldest mail centre at Mount Pleasant.

World-class Archive and Collections

As well as featuring a purpose-built archive repository, the new Postal Museum and Archive will feature spectacular exhibition spaces to showcase the BPMA’s archive and collections, which range from postal vehicles to pillar boxes, staff records, posters, photographs, uniforms, weapons and the world’s greatest collection of British stamps.

Poster: 79,242 Postmen, Duncan Grant, 1939.

Highlights include every British stamp issued from 1840 to the present day; original evidence from the Great Train Robbery trial; the world’s first commercial Christmas card produced in 1843; a 1930s art-deco Mobile Post Office; Valentine’s Day cards dating from c. 1790; telegrams relating to the Titanic disaster; weapons used to protect the mail against theft or piracy; a digital Oral History collection recounting the personal stories of hundreds of current and retired postal staff from around Britain; a first edition of ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce, intercepted in the post for being obscene; uniforms of Victorian River Postmen; a Travelling Post Office railway coach; films produced by the iconic GPO film unit; telegrams sent by the royal family; medals awarded to Post Office Employees including a rare Victoria Cross; and posters, prints and paintings by celebrated artists including Edward Bawden, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.

Understanding and celebrating Britain’s postal heritage and wider social history

The new Postal Museum and Archive will feature a state-of-the-art education centre and extensive research facilities, designed to encourage school children, students and the wider public to learn from and be inspired by postal heritage in all its depth and context. The new education space will increase the BPMA’s annual educational engagement from 2,000 to 12,000 pupils, representing a 600% increase on its current offering.

Key examples of how the BPMA’s collections reflect Britain’s social history:

• In 1840 the launch of the Penny Black, the world’s first prepaid stamp, encouraged people to write and became a vehicle for education, friendship and commerce
• The opening of Post Office Savings Bank backed by the Government in 1861 encouraged people of all walks of life to save money safely and to help combat debt
• W. Reginald Bray became the first ‘human letter’ when he posted himself, later emulated by two suffragettes who attempted to have themselves delivered to Downing Street
• During WW1 the Post Office co-ordinated all army mail and by 1918 had 22,000 pigeons carrying messages to the front
• In 1943 the world’s first programmable electronic computer was built by the GPO’s Tommy Flowers, helping to break many German encrypted codes during WW2

Mail Rail: London’s Best Kept Secret

As an added visitor attraction, the BPMA is exploring plans to convert a section of Mail Rail, the former underground Post Office railway network. Introduced in 1927 and operational until 2003, Mail Rail was the world’s first driverless electrified railway, which revolutionised the delivery of mail in the UK. To this day it remains the world’s only dedicated underground mail transport system, representing an important and largely unseen element of Britain’s industrial heritage.

Poster design: Post Office Tube Railway, Edward Bawden, c. 1935.

Subject to sufficient funding, the Mail Rail depot at Mount Pleasant will be transformed into an immersive visitor centre, introducing a fascinating 15 minute ride on the Mail Rail network on newly-designed trains through the existing tunnels.

Benefitting the local area and contributing to an improved sense of community

Bridging the boroughs of Camden and Islington, the new Postal Museum and Archive will serve as an important cultural hub and community resource. As well as offering cultural and training opportunities for young people, the BPMA will organise out-of-school cultural opportunities and strong community outreach programmes, contributing to a vibrant Camden and Islington.

Historic Stamp Sale

The project to develop the new Postal Museum and Archive will cost approximately £22 million and a fundraising campaign is currently underway, with considerable support from Royal Mail and Post Office Limited. Other funding is in place from the Heritage Lottery Fund and from the BPMA itself.

As part of the fundraising campaign, the BPMA is pursuing two sales of surplus duplicate philatelic material currently held in its custody though not part of its accessioned collections. The historic auctions will take place at Sotheby’s, which held the first ever stamp auction in Europe in 1872. The first sale, held on 11th July 2013, will comprise 191 lots and is estimated by Sotheby’s to bring in excess of £5 million.

One of the duplicate items for sale: Seahorse ‘Registration’ sheets, 1923, one of only two such sheets in existence.

Adrian Steel, Director of the BPMA, said:

Since we first announced our project to open a new first class home for Britain’s postal heritage in London last year we have received widespread support, and following last month’s announcement of this sale it has been great to receive encouragement from those who want to play their part in our fundraising campaign by participating in the auction. The BPMA’s collections are of the utmost richness in iconic British heritage and engaging personal stories, and from family historians to families who want to immerse themselves in something new as part of a day out in London, our new centre offers something sparkling with fascination and enjoyment for everyone. It will safeguard all our collections into the future, and by taking up the chance to own the rare philatelic specimens on offer at Sotheby’s, all potential buyers can feel proud that they are helping to safeguard the originals, and all our world class collections, from Penny Blacks to packet ship records, for the nation and the world to enjoy.

Football Heroes

Today Royal Mail is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the establishing of the rules of Association Football with the release of a set of stamps entitled ‘Football Heroes’. The launch also coincides with the 150th anniversary year of the Football Association and the 140th anniversary year of the Scottish Football Association.

Football Heroes stamps.

The 11 1st Class stamps feature individual footballers from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, all of whom were supremely gifted, talented players who stood out in their generation and beyond. The stamps have been illustrated by artist Andrew Kinsman, who took existing photography of all the players, then created a composite artwork, so when the 11 stamps are placed together, they form a traditional team shot.

The eleven players selected were chosen for their outstanding record on the pitch and representation of their home countries. All are in the National Football Museum’s Hall of Fame.

In goal was a man many consider to be the greatest ‘keeper to ever play for England, Gordon Banks, with the legendary English World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore, possibly the finest Welsh player of all time John Charles, and Scottish legend, Dave Mackay making up an impressive back three.

Gordon Banks.

Bobby Moore.

John Charles.

Dave Mackay.

English ‘Captain Marvel’, Bryan Robson takes his central midfield berth alongside Bobby Charlton, recognised as one of the greatest English footballers of all time and Kevin Keegan, twice named European Footballer of the Year.

Bryan Robson.

Bobby Charlton.

Kevin Keegan.

Leading the line in this adventurous formation sees the wide positions occupied by the graceful English winger, John Barnes and the Northern Irish genius, George Best. Both players supply a striking duo of England’s Jimmy Greaves, one of the most instinctively gifted footballers in the history of the game, and Denis Law, the Scottish Football Association’s outstanding player of the previous 50 years.

John Barnes.

George Best.

Jimmy Greaves.

Dennis Law.

Stamps are available online at www.royalmail.com/stamps, by phone on 08457 641 641, and in 9000 Post Offices across the UK.

Stamp Collage Art – Open Studio exhibition in May

Hi, I’m Rachel Marwick, and I will be taking part in Stroud Open Studios (Site 13) festival on 11th/12th and 18th/19th May this year. As a stamp collage artist I will be having my studio open to the public on both weekends from 10.30 – 6pm each day and will have original framed stamp collages, prints and cards for sale, but always welcome browsers too as there’s always something to talk about where stamps are concerned! For younger visitors I have also devised a small quiz which will get them searching in my pictures for some of the stamps I’ve used in creating the pictures.

I have been making stamp collages for more than ten years now and one of the questions I often get asked is, “Where do you get all the stamps from?” The answer is that my parents were stamp dealers from the 1950s until my father’s death in 2001 when my mother decided that she could not really continue with the business. Most of the stock had to be sold, but a certain amount I wanted to keep and then inspiration struck and I started to make pictures from the remainder of the stock!

I wondered if serious stamp collectors would be shocked, but I really do try not to use anything which I know to be valuable to a collector, instead using common stamps and postal material, such as backs of postcards and envelopes, postmarks etc. I love incorporating interesting details from stamps to create my pictures, and particularly love searching for people to populate my crowd scenes, such as the pictures of the Colosseum and Leaning Tower of Pisa. I also seem to have become a magnet for stamps as when people see what I do, they often offer me small collections or stamps they have been saving up for whatever reason!

As well as having my own studio open as part of the festival, where more than 90 artists are also opening their own studios, my work will be featured in a Taster Exhibition in Stroud Subscription rooms, and also in a joint exhibition at The Old Passage Inn, Arlingham as part of the Walking the Land Artists exhibition, which is called “Between the Woods and the Water”. The picture below will give you an idea of the use of both stamps and postmarks in my work!

It would be lovely to welcome you to my studio and if you do come along, please mention where you heard about it!

Rachel Marwick
The Lawn, 132 Bisley Road, Stroud, Glos. GL5 1HL
01453 757933
Directions to studio are in the Open Studios Brochure or phone me for further details.

Deal Lugger

The Last Straw: a brief look at complaints

Whilst I was working on some uncatalogued documents, I came across a file regarding the gumming of postage stamps. Not necessarily the most engaging of topics, you might think, but what attracted my interest was a number of letters to the General Post Office (GPO) dating from the 1950s to the 1970s. These were written by customers complaining about the poor quality of the gum used to affix stamps to mail. Some were very entertaining, and got me thinking about the nature of complaint. It’s a commonly-held belief that modern life in Britain isn’t a patch on “the good old days”, but as these letters show, the people of the past often held the same view.

In the early 1970s, the Post Office decided to switch the adhesive used on stamps from gum Arabic to Polyvinyl alcohol, or PVA. However, this didn’t go down well with the public, as it appeared that the glue was not the best quality, and often came loose from the paper. In 1973, complaints ranged from the light-hearted (“do you think you may spare a lick more glue on 3p stamps?”) to the exasperated (“it is not a habit of mine to write and complain – but this is the last straw!”). A confused postal sorter asked “is it the gum or the lack of spit?” One customer was enraged by the GPO’s reply stating that as 7,000 million stamps were produced per year, some defective ones were bound to “slip through”, and huffily replied that as he had experienced this problem constantly for the past 8 weeks, it seemed rather to be the general standard. It wasn’t just the gum that was causing annoyance; the perforations came in for criticism too: “until now I had been disturbed by the feeling that lavatorial jokes based on the line ‘nothing tears along the dotted edge’ were founded in myth”.

I found it interesting to see how complaints can be timeless; one dissatisfied customer lamented that “the Britain of the past seems to have gone, everything is inferior, most of the employees have no time for doing a proper job for having strikes”. Going back further in time, to the First World War, I discovered a letter from a union of discharged soldiers complaining that men were being refused postal employment in favour of women, who the writer believed were being hired because their wages were cheaper. You can well imagine someone making a similar complaint today.

One of the best things about working at the BPMA is that you can get the chance to see little snippets of human life such as these, as well as the records of policy and administration we hold. It’s a great way of seeing how society has progressed, or, in some cases, has remained exactly the same.

- Robin Sampson, Archives/Records Assistant

Archive material used:

POST 52/1052 - “Complaints about PVA Gum on stamps”

POST 47/64 - “Complaint that Men have been Refused Employment at the Home Depot in Favour of Women”

This blog was researched at the Royal Mail Archive, located at BPMA’s headquarters in Clerkenwell, London. There are millions of stories to uncover at the Royal Mail Archive, see our website for Archive opening hours and visitor information.