The 2013 Midpex exhibition is returning to the Warwickshire Exhibition Centre near Leamington on 6th July 2013 and looks set to be bigger and better than ever with more than 60 dealers and some 40 specialist societies planning to take part. For the first time a Royal Mail Post & Go machine will be available for use.
A special commemorative cover marking the 20th anniversary of the Formation of The Royal Logistic Corps will be issued by the British Forces Philatelic Service on April 5th 2013.
The Hytech Post & Go Machine at the British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) will see a new design replace the Christmas Robin pictorial later this week.
Collectors of Post & Go stamps will already appreciate the rarity of the Birds 3 pictorials overprinted with the 40g Worldwide rate. This scarceness is due to most stocks being exhaused by the time of the software upgrade that made the 40g Worldwide rate available.
Just in case your wallet still has a little cash in it, Royal Mail is again offering new commemorative Post & Go stamps during Spring Stampex this year.
The next Stamps and World Postal History Auction to be held by Stanley Gibbons is scheduled for March 13th-14th 2013 and they promise an outstanding array of more than 2000 lots with pre-sale estimates of around £1 million.
This years Great Britons special stamp issue will comprise of ten 1st Class values commemorating photographer Norman Parkinson, actress Vivien Leigh, actor Peter Cushing, David Lloyd George the Liberal politician and Prime Minister, writer Elizabeth David, John Archer who was the first Briton of Afro-Caribbean origin to hold a UK public office, composer Benjamin Britten, archaeologist and anthropologist Mary Leakey, legendary Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly and, finally, the BBC broadcaster Richard Dimbleby.
A new British Postmark of interest to collectors will be in use by Royal Mail for one day only on 29th January to commemorate the 2013 norse flavoured fire festival of Up Helly Aa in Lerwick, Shetland Islands. As the preview image shows, this postmark features an attractive celtic design surrounded by the usual postmark information detailed in a sympathetic font.
Many stamp enthusiasts will remember the huge stamp enlargements produced by Royal Mail to promote the Gold medal winners stamps during the Olympic and Paralympic Games last summer. We learned today that Royal Mail have donated many of these foamex enlargements to raise funds for Prostate Cancer UK and they are being offered right now in low start, no reserve online auctions.
With over 250 boxes and 200 albums of mixed lots accumulated in the six months since the last public auction in June 2012, Stanley Gibbons auction room saw fierce competition for collections on 5th and 6th December.
On the Norvic Philatelics blog this week there's a picture of a Post and Go faststamp with forged overprint on a Union Flag pictorial. The forged overprint wasn't too difficult to spot as it claims to have pre-paid for a "Worldwide up to 30g" service which doesn't exist!
Here's a 2013 new stamp issue calendar for Royal Mail's special stamp sets and Post & Go pictorials.
Brighton seems to have begun with quite a normal Maltese Cross in 1840 but this apparently wore badly and GPO records indicate that a replacement was issued during September 1841. However, before the replacement was issued, a distinctive local Cross also seems to have been used.
The Arnold Machin effigy of HM The Queen was first used in 1967 and, some 46 years on in 2013, Royal Mail are issuing nine new Machin definitives featuring a new palette of colours.
The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) have produced an official First Day Cover for their new Post & Go stamps launched on 3rd December. Only 50 First Day Covers were produced so prompt orders are advised.
On 22nd February 2013, which is the third day of Spring Stampex, the first in the series of "Freshwater Life" Post & Go pictorials will be issued. The first issue will focus on British pond life.
