2953. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Royal Mail Stamps Featuring Glasgow.

 

New issues -

🇭🇰 Hong Kong Post -

30 July 2026 - ‘Biodiversity’ part 2 - 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet containing all 4 stamps. Designed by Abdelkrim Asrar and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 14 x 14.5. Rating:- *.

Glasgow on stamps -

Back in 2022 when Birmingham hosted the Commonwealth Games I included in one of the blogs, a survey of all the Royal Mail stamps featuring that city and it seems therefore only fair that I do the same now that Glasgow is once more hosting the Games. In truth there are not really too many stamps to mention.

  A set of four stamps was issued on 6 March 1990 as part of the annual EUROPA omnibus series. Two stamps from the set commemorated Glasgow’s year of being the European City of Culture. Two buildings were featured - the Glasgow School of Art and the Templeton Carpet Factory. The glorious Mackintosh building in the School of Art was subsequently badly damaged by fire in and then destroyed by another fire in June 2018.

  The 14th World Orchid Conference was hosted in Glasgow in April 1993 at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in the city and a set of 5 stamps was issued on 16 March 1993 to commemorate the event although the stamps featured only orchids and made no reference to Glasgow on them.

The Glasgow Corporation Tramways Service got a mention on the cover of a £1.30 definitive stamp booklet issued as part of a series on British trams and released on 15 January 1985.

  A Glasgow tram was also featured on one of the 4 stamps issued on 10 May 1988 on the subject of transport and communications which was the theme of the that year’s EUROPA issue.

  The Armadillo Scottish Exhibition Centre in Glasgow was depicted on one of the ten stamps issued in 2017 which depicted modern ‘landmark’ buildings.

  The annual conferences of the political party, the Scottish National Party, were commemorated by the release of Post and Go stamps both in 2016 and 2017 with 2nd and 1st type colours being

  Finally we have the set of 6 stamps issued on 7 July 2014 to commemorate the city’s first hosting of the Commonwealth Games wbich concentrated on depicting some of the sports rather than Glasgow itself -

Commonwealth Countries which are not known to have issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps during 2016 until the end of July - 

Anguilla

Antigua and Barbuda 

Australia Cocos (Keeling) Islands 

Australia Norfolk Island 

Australian Antarctic Territory 

Barbados 

British Antarctic Territory 

British Indian Ocean Territory 

British Virgin Islands 

Cameroon 

Cook Islands including Rarotonga 

Cook Islands Aitutaki 

Cook Islands Penrhyn

Dominica

Gabon 

Grenada 

Grenada Carriacou and Petite Martinique 

Guyana 

Jamaica

Kingdom of eSwatini 

Lesotho 

Maldives 

Montserrat 

Mozambique 

Nevis 

New Zealand Ross Dependency 

Niue

Papua New Guinea 

Pitcairn Islands 

Rwanda 

St Helena

St Kitts/St Kitts Nevis 

Saint Lucia 

St Vincent and the Grenadines 

Samoa 

Seychelles 

Tokelau

Tonga 

Tonga Niuafo’ou

Trinidad and Tobago 

Turks and Caicos Islands 

Tuvalu

Uganda 

United Republic of Tanzania 

Vanuatu 

Zambia 

Therefore at the end of July, 46 out of 88 (52.3%) Commonwealth philatelic entities have not issued, or had issued on their behalf, any legitimate postage stamps during 2026. This compares with 55.7% at the end of June 2026 and 54% at the end of July 2025.

2617. 🇬🇧 More On Royal Mail’s Commemoration Of Sir Winston Churchill.

 

New Issues -

🇬🇧 Royal Mail -

30 November 2024 - The issue commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Winston Churchill is now featured on the Royal Mail stamps internet site and so better quality illustrations than those shown in Blog 5315 can be featured along with more information.

The set is made up of 8 stamps (4 vertically se-tenant pairs) costing £11, 1 Prestige booklet made up of 4 panes sold for £22.25 (one pane of 2 x 50p and 2 x £1 King Charles III definitives) and one ‘Collectors sheet’ containing 10 stamps with attached labels costing £13.90. Designed by Baxter & Bailey and lithographed by Cartor. Perforated 14.5 x 14. Rating:- *****.

1952. 🇬🇧 Royal Mail Rugby Union Issue Features String Of England Defeats.

 

🇬🇧 One of the things I like about new issue collecting is what it tells us about the way things are. The stamps of the wealthy western nations’ post offices have to tread the path of political correctness and political neutrality to such an extent that certainly here in Britain so many subjects are likely to upset those who like to be offended that those who choose themes must tread a narrow footpath to the destination of an annual stamp programme.

  In these present times even a subject like rugby football is fraught with political nuances which postal authorities must come to terms with so as to be able to avoid a torrent of complaints about what they are featuring on their stamps and the way in which they are depicting it.

  One of the problems for Royal Mail is that it serves four regions of the United Kingdom - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - all of which are labelled as being nations or countries (though the question of precisely what Northern Ireland is remains sticky to say the least) and the needs of each must be addressed. If it looks as though their own particular region (country) is not getting its share of the cake then the most likely people to be up in arms about it are the Scots and the Welsh and the English are the least likely to be a nuisance to those charged with deciding what should be what in the British Isles. Thus in any series of stamps it may be unwise for Royal Mail not to include designs which represent all four regions (countries), especially Scotland, and you certainly do not want to have any historical stamps commemorating English victories over the Scots nor sporting stamps in which Scots teams are defeated by  English teams. 

  So what do you do when you are charged with finding photographs of relatively recent rugby matches to illustrate the subject of the 150th anniversary of Rugby Union? Well, first be careful you achieve the right gender balance and if you are going to issue 8 stamps make sure four of them feature women’s rugby even though high level women’s rugby is a relatively recent phenomenon. Even now make sure you feature the Scots and the Welsh beating the English. Why wouldn’t you? But of course it’s alright to show even the English beating foreigners, so one stamp is allowed to show an English team winning - this time beating a team from Canada.

  Then you get to the men’s teams - this time you get to show the Welsh and the Irish beating England, the philatelically-favoured Irish (not Northern Irish) beating the Scots and just to show you can show an English victory - as long as it’s not against the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish - you depict them beating the Australians which of course everyone can have a good laugh about.

  It is dangerous when our postage stamps become so deeply charged with modern trendy political messages and I expect that Royal Mail would raise its collective hands in horror at the suggestion that it had done so but really, do they think we are that daft?

  For what it’s worth these little gems were designed by True North and lithographed by International Security Printers and are perforated 14 x 14.5. Rating:- *.

  Date of issue - 19 October 2021.

1706. 🇸🇸 South Sudan’s COVID-19 Stamps.

🇸🇸 Now being offered for sale on an internet auction site is the previously reported expected set of stamps with an accompanying miniature sheet on the subject of the Struggle against COVID-19 which has now been released by the postal service of South Sudan on 21 July 2020. The set is made up of 6 stamps similar in design to those reported in Blog 1697 which have been issued by other Non-Commonwealth African postal services such as Senegal, Chad and Djibouti. These are colourful and interesting stamps though expensive (particularly the miniature sheet which seems to have been issued in a limited edition of 300). These are the first postage stamps to have been released by the South Sudan postal service since  2017.

🇮🇪🇬🇧 An Post, the postal service of The Republic of Ireland, and Royal Mail are using a joint commemorative postmark for the first time ever to honour the footballer, the late Jack Charlton, who was a player in the England team in the successful 1966 World Cup final as well as the manager of the Irish football team which during his managership enjoyed considerable international competition success. The postmark reads ‘Jack Charlton 1935 - 2020’ and is in use from 20 July to 9 August 2020. Jack Charlton’s brother, Bobby, was depicted on one of the stamps in the set of ‘Football Heroes’ issued in 2011. The two brothers played alongside each other in the 1966 World Cup Championshios final.

Jack’s brother, Bobby Charlton

🇬🇧 The issue of 6 stamps and 1 miniature sheet to be released by Royal Mail on 30 July 2020 which I mentioned in Blog 1701 has now been added to the Royal Mail Stamps and Collectables site. The issue commemorates the 150th anniversary of the rebuilding of The Palace of Westminster and is in the same format as previous issues in the ongoing ‘Royal Palaces’ series. The issue was designed by Steers McGillan Eves and lithographed by International Security Printers and is perforated 14.5.