2461. 🇬🇧 Dinosaurs And Postal Rate Rises Next From Royal Mail.

 

New issues -

🇬🇧Royal Mail - 

12 March 2024 - The Age of Dinosaurs - 8 stamps (4x1st and 4x£2 in vertically se-tenant pairs so that each pair makes up a single image) and 1 miniature sheet containing 4 x 1st stamps). Further details awaited. Rating:- ****.

  The above poor quality illustrations are taken from an internet auction site where a seller is offering the 1st Class rate stamps only in complete sheets. This seller appears to advertise the 1st rate Royal Mail new issues like this on a regular basis before the embargo on publicising them imposed on most stamp dealers has been lifted.

  These are certainly beautifully illustrated items though why those who decide on Royal Mail’s new issue programme feel that yet another set on the subject of dinosaurs is necessary is not easy to understand.

  Anyone considering adding them to their collection will wish to note that Royal Mail has announced an increase in postal rates from 2 April 2024 when the 1st Class domestic letter rate increases from £1.25 to £1.35 and so it will be best to buy them in the first month after their issue to avoid paying the added sum of 10p per stamp. The 2nd Class domestic letter rate will also rise from 75p to 85p and other changes include a rise in the Large letter up to 100g rate from £1.95 to £2.10 and a rise in Worldwide letter rates from £2.20 to £2.50p. 

  Ian Billings’ indispensable Norvic Philatelic Blog has just produced a highly detailed summary of all the changes Royal Mail is making to its postal rates and points out that there will be a new £2.50 definitive stamp to address the change in Worldwide letter rate. The colour of the new stamp is described as Gooseberry Green which sounds like the rather twee name of a tiny Worcestershire hamlet with a village pond at the centre of it. The new stamp is an “insipid colour”which will liven up any item of mail winging its way across the oceans.

  As regards the Royal Mail King Charles III definitives, both the 2nd Class and 1st Class domestic rate stamps from counter sheets with code M24L MAIL are now on sale.

🇨🇦 Canada Post - 

1 March 2024 - Wild flowers - 2 self-adhesive stamps from booklets of 10 (5 of each design), 2 self-adhesive stamps from coils and 1 gummed miniature sheet containing both stamps. Designed by Andrew Perro from illustrations by Alain Massicote and lithographed by Lowe Martin. Rating:- *****.