2950. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 No Stamps For The 2026 Commonwealth Games.

 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 The Commonwealth Games, Glasgow, Scotland.

23 July - 2 August 2026 - No stamps.

 It appears that the 2026 Commonwealth Games hosted by Glasgow are to be the first held in the United Kingdom not to be commemorated by Royal Mail with the issue of postage stamps though recently Royal Mail has issued a large number of thematic issues - military aircraft, moths, waterfalls, ducks, castles ete etc without any good reason to do so apart from the possibility that such subjects are deemed to be popular with the public and depicting them might just result in people who do not collect stamps buying them and consequently contribute to RM profits and equally they might just start collecting stamps (faint chance).

  The problem for these Commonwealth Games - the 23rd - is that nobody really wanted to host them because of the expense of it all, as well as nobody really caring about them. The 2026 Games were to have been held in Birmingham but the city brought forward its hosting of the  Games to 2022 at a rather late stage because Durban in South Africa which had been chosen to host the Games withdrew from doing so in March 2017. Birmingham was bankrupted - twice - a year or so after the 2022 Games - though, at the time, the Games were generally enjoyed by the city’s residents. The city’s main inheritance from the Games were bankruptcy, a new sports stadium, an Athletes Village which was not ready in time to host the athletes and still remains largely uninhabited and ‘Ozzy the Bull’, a vast machine in the form of a bull now housed at the city’s New Street station, admired by arrivals at the station and loved by the citizens.

Ozzy the Birmingham Bull

  Birmingham’s hosting of the Games left a void for the hosting of the 2026 Games and this opportunity was generally greeted by the cities of The Commonwealth with a wall of indifference. Eventually the Australian state of Victoria stepped forward into the breech and became the host apparent for 2026 but concerns about the costs led it to withdraw in July 2023, just 15 months after it was awarded the Games. Subsequently, the former Australian host city of Gold Coast in Queensland took on the challenge and then thought better of it and withdrew its offer and eventually the former host of the Games, Glasgow, took on the role of host once more with the Scottish government agreeing to host the Games on 17 September 2024 with financial backing from Commonwealth Games Australia, clearly not leaving much time for preparations for the Games.

  As well as being ignored by Royal Mail, these are the first Games not to be shown free-to-view television in the United Kingdom. Perhaps they will be called the Orphan Games. 

  Regardless, we hope the Glasgow Games are successful. Up to 74 countries and territories are expected to participate with Togo and Gabon being present for the first time.

  As curmudgeonly old Royal Mail will not be releasing postage stamps to commemorate the Games, here’s a set of 4 designs and a miniature sheet containing all 4 designs to make up for this philatelic shunning of the Games. They were created by Gemini AI, the whole process taking about 7 minutes. 

  The six previous Commonwealth Games held in the United Kingdom were all commemorated by the issue of postage stamps - be it the Post Office or Royal Mail -

The 6th British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Cardiff (3 stamps),

the 9th British Commonwealth Games, Edinburgh (3 stamps),

the 13th Commonwealth Games, Edinburgh (3 stamps),

the 17th Commonwealth Games, Manchester (4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet) 

the 20th Commonwealth Games, Glasgow (6 stamps) and 

the 22nd Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham (8 stamps).

Finally, here’s some of the teams parading in to the stadium at the 2022 Games. Note that Ozzy The Bull is keeping a close eye on the proceedings -

2767. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 King Charles Makes His First Appearance On Scottish Definitives.

 

New Issues -

🇬🇧 Royal Mail  

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Issues for Scotland -

14 August 2025 - Definitive stamps with the cameo head of  King Charles III included in the design - 2 stamps with barcodes. Self-adhesive. Designed by Tayburn from art by Anton Morris and Frank Pottinger. Lithographed by Cartor and perforated 15 x 14.5. Rating:- *****.

🇮🇳 India Post -

7 August 2025 - Birth centenary of MS Swaminathan, geneticist - 1 stamp. Rating:- ***.

🇧🇩 Bangladesh Post -

5 March 2025 - Commemoration of the July Mass Uprising - 1 miniature sheet containing 4 different stamps. Lithographed. Rating:- *****.

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -

🇨🇶 Products inscribed ‘Sark’ - 

27 August - 80th anniversary of the liberation from occupation by Nazi German forces - 1 sheetlet containing all 8 stamps included in the basic set plus labels. See Blog 2764. Designed by Sue Daly and lithographed by Brebner Print. Sold in a pack for £17.50. Rating:- ***.

2120. 🇬🇧 United Kingdom Regions - New Bar Coded Stamps.

 

New issues.

🇬🇧 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🍀🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 

Royal Mail -

11 August 2022 - Issues for the four regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - Regional issues reissued with bar codes and self-adhesive - 12 stamps (3 each for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Designed by Sedley Place (England stamps) and lithographed by International Security Printers. Rating:- ****.

  I like the regional issues though I long have felt that if Royal Mail had recognised how interested people are in their own areas then we might not have been stuck with the same, admittedly excellent, designs for decades. I should like to have seen full definitive series for each of the English regions - the North, the Midlands and East Anglia, the South West, the South East and London. For the three national regions (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) and each of the suggested six regions I would have liked to have seen three special issues per year, each of relevance to the region for which they were issued. In addition there could perhaps have been, say, four to six national issues per year on subjects of relevance to all the nine regions and included in these could be Royal Mail’s ‘blockbuster’ issues (which I personally loath) whereby large profits could possibly be made by Royal Mail from pandering to those non-stamp collectors who have the need to buy merchandise relevant to whichever popular television/film/children’s book series to which they are pathologically devoted (see below).

  Of course I realise that this means that Royal Mail would have 8 definitive series on the go (though I would not expect the highest couple of values to be included in anything but a United Kingdom national set) and up to 38 sets per year but each regional set in particular would not have to include more than, say, four to six stamps (as opposed to the eight to twelve stamps per set which occurs frequently at present) with total face value adjusted so that each set is sold at a reasonable but not enormous profit, the main profit coming from the blockbuster sets. One regional issue per year might be an ‘omnibus’, each region issuing a set of four stamps on the same subject of birds perhaps or royal visits to the regions (perhaps for The Queen’s 100th birthday or regional cuisine or famous sportspeople from each region or on the subject of diversity or identity in each region (to address current themes) … the potential is endless. 

  For collectors who quite reasonably might feel this would be all too much there would be the choice of collecting the issues of a single or several regions without bothering with the national issues (or vice versa) and there would still be plenty of opportunity for Royal Mail to extract large profits on collectables connected to their ‘blockbuster’ issues from non-stamp collectors who know no better.

  I suppose it’s all too late for anything like this now though with the government’s stated policy of ‘levelling up’ the regions this would be Royal Mail’s own contribution to promoting provincial UK. 

  Unfortunately the present policy of those who plan UK new issues is centred on making as vast a profit as possible (after all, Royal Mail is a commercial business where shareholders’ needs come first) particularly from the merchandise associated with popular if trivial forms of modern entertainment which increasingly have little or nothing to do with The United Kingdom. The promotion of a national image and the recognition of its citizens achievements, culture and history (apart perhaps from virtue signalling to show that the organisation is in step with the latest social trends and not laying itself open to criticism of its view of society) through the UK’s postage stamps is now low down on the priorities of Royal Mail’s metropolitan elite higher management in the pursuit of profit. ‘Levelling-up’ is not necessarily a priority for such an elite and there seems little reason why promoting the regions would be of benefit to it. Hence I suppose we are stuck with these unambitious stamps representing just four regions - stamps which few people ever see being sold over the counter in their local post offices.

  It seems that the Scottish nationalists will not rest until they have prised Scotland away from the United Kingdom and so it may not be too long before we do see more than these products representing that territory. Northern Ireland’s days in the United Kingdom may too be numbered but by the time there is a rump United Kingdom it is possible we will not be needing postage stamps and certainly not regionals.

  On the subject of trivial, irrelevant new issues it appears that Royal Mail will launch its next ‘Blockbuster’ issue on the non-British subject of Transformers not to stamp collectors but instead to a convention of toy collectors at an extravaganza called TF Nation to be held at a hotel in Birmingham from 12 - 14 August. It rather begs the question of why Royal Mail doesn’t give up releasing pointless stamps and just invest in a toy factory to produce Dr Who, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Transformers, James Bond etc action figures. Cut out the middle man and stop wasting time with stamps.

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.

1869. 🇬🇧 The Queen’s 95th Birthday.

 

🇬🇧 Depicted here are the stamps from the Royal Mail special pane of 4 x 1st Class Machin Head definitives plus 4 x 1st regional stamps (one each for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) plus one stamp-sized label issued on 21 April 2021 to commemorate the Queen’s 95th Birthday. Unfortunately, as previously reported (see Blog 1857). this pane was only available to collectors used on an expensive cover which contained in it a commemorative £5 coin though some dealers were also able to obtain the panes but only for them to use on mail (not to sell them unused to collectors). It’s all very silly and hopefully this latest little trick will not be something that Royal Mail feels it should repeat but as a (hopefully) one off it’s quite interesting. As can be seen in the illustration, the code on the Machin Head stamp is M21L Mail.

  🇺🇸  With the 95th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II falling on 21 April 2021, the US-based producer and purveyor of philatelic items otherwise known as IGPC reminds us that it has released on to the market a number of products relating to the royal birthday with the names of Commonwealth territories printed on them. The client territories on whose behalf they have produced these items are Grenada (2 miniature sheets), Grenada Carriacou And Petite Martinique (1 miniature sheet), St Vincent And The Grenadines (2 miniature sheets) and Tuvalu (2 miniature sheets) which are all Queen’s Realms or parts thereof. There are also 2 miniature sheets with the name of Guyana printed on them even though Guyana replaced The Queen as Head of State with a president more than 50 years ago. I have mentioned these in recent Blogs but repeat the information here so that anyone interested in this omnibus can add them to the issues of the other territories also recently mentioned (series of 11 territories including the 3 Crown dependencies, Gibraltar, Bahamas and 6 British Overseas dependencies which are clients of Pobjoy stamps/Creative Direction) plus Royal Mail as discussed above and New Zealand Post.