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Those who are waiting for Britain's gold medal stamps can go to the post office tomorrow as we celebrate the first women's gold medal ever, as well as the first gold medal of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Helen Glover and Heather Stanning in the coxless pair.

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Australia claimed silver and New Zealand the bronze in front of a capacity crowd at Eton Dorney. So this picture is not a celebration of GB beating Australia, they were the only two finish when I took the shot!

Just saw it on TV Ian and it was a great effort. They were streets ahead of the rest and a deserved win.

Our effort at getting the silver medal wasn't too bad either.

All in all Australia hasn't done any where near as well so far as we have in other recent Olympics. Than again I see that many of the winners, including the Chinese super swimmer, we're trained by coaches from Australia, the traitors

Still it's all about the money isn't it

norvic wrote:Those who are waiting for Britain's gold medal stamps can go to the post office tomorrow...

I was at the PO this morning asking if they had a stamp for that girl who swims for Lithuania but goes to school in Plymouth

norvic wrote: we celebrate the first women's gold medal ever, as well as the first gold medal of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Norvic, I presume you mean first ever in the rowing? That does surprise me though as the men have been gold getters from way back.

Brummie wrote:

norvic wrote: we celebrate the first women's gold medal ever, as well as the first gold medal of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Norvic, I presume you mean first ever in the rowing? That does surprise me though as the men have been gold getters from way back.

Yes, let my fingers run away with me there. There's lots of 'firsts'; somebody tweeted that it was the first gold for a woman from Cornwall!

A very good race by the two English girls and wasn't the crowd going off, well done.

And here is the stamp that will be issued tomorrow...

And this man gets the second, Cyclist Bradley Wiggins became Britain's most decorated Olympian with victory in the London 2012 time trial, after winning the Tour de France last month.



and let's not forget that Chris Froome took Bronze as well!

TeamGB is just slow getting out of the blocks...once they get going, watch out.

Congrats on the gold, from a Canadian who's watching their country languish with 4 bronzes only, while North Korea even already has 3 gold.

Of course, if not many GB athletes get gold, collectors won't bemoan the flood of new stamps.

As an aside, why is it "Team GB" not "Team UK"? I just saw a recording of the opening, and didn't see Scotland et al marching separate in the parade of athletes.

aethelwulf wrote:As an aside, why is it "Team GB" not "Team UK"? I just saw a recording of the opening, and didn't see Scotland et al marching separate in the parade of athletes.

GB = Great Britain = England Wales and Scotland
UK = United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (previously Great Britain and Ireland)

So your argument is logical but GB has been used internationally for so long in so many differet circumstances that it would be difficult to change it. Interestingly, in Foreign Office terms, the Queen is referred to as 'Her Britannic Majesty'.

Second gold medal stamp - Bradley Wiggins claimed a British record seventh Olympic medal with a sensational gold in the men's time trial.



Incidentally, you'll probably notice that the individual stamps have the name of the winner, while the team stamps have the name of the team. The names of the team members are on the miniature sheet selvedge:

I had a great time this afternoon standing at the side of the road cheering as Chris, Bradley and the others came speeding past. 8) Great atmosphere!

nigelc wrote:I had a great time this afternoon standing at the side of the road cheering as Chris, Bradley and the others came speeding past. 8) Great atmosphere!

I was watching from time to time on the BBC website while listening to Radio5 coverage. It looked superb; unfortunately the BBC cut away from Hampton Court and we didn't see the medal group come out through the big doors, but we did get the ceremony.

Here's the full sheet, first as one scan, and then as a pair of scans. The printer location at lower left actually shows the town/city rather than a region as we thought it would. So each stamp exists from 6 printers, they will eventually be sold singly cut from the miniature sheet. Each A4 sheet (£14.40) consists of 4 miniature sheets (£3.60) of 6 stamps (60p). (Total cost of 6 A4 sheets is £86.40 so if there are 20 gold medals.....)

Each of the miniature sheets, including left sheet selvedge, has a different marginal marking.

aethelwulf wrote:Congrats on the gold, from a Canadian who's watching their country languish with 4 bronzes only, [/color]

Perhaps at the next Summer games they might include Hockey

stallzer wrote:

aethelwulf wrote:Congrats on the gold, from a Canadian who's watching their country languish with 4 bronzes only, [/color]

Perhaps at the next Summer games they might include Hockey

You mean this hockey (available in men's and women's versions at London 2012) http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/2012/sports/hockey/events/mens-hockey

At the risk of becoming boring, TeamGB is now winning medals in unexpected events:

Great Britain have taken gold and silver in the canoe slalom C2 event. Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott claimed Britain's first ever gold in the event, with David Florence and Richard Hounslow taking silver.



Shooter Peter Wilson won Britain's fourth gold medal of the London Olympics with victory in the double trap competition.
(It seems that of all the pictures available through Getty Images this was the best they could find of Wilson.)



Britain's men's cycling team sprint trio smashed their own world record to beat France to gold on an incredible evening at the London Velodrome. Philip Hindes, Jason Kenny and Sir Chris Hoy clocked 42.600 seconds, beating the mark they set in the previous round.
(Stamp image due in about 2 hours)

Last one for today:

Britain's men's cycling team sprint trio smashed their own world record to beat France to gold on an incredible evening at the London Velodrome. Philip Hindes, Jason Kenny and Sir Chris Hoy clocked 42.600 seconds, beating the mark they set in the previous round.


Good night all!!

...and well done Ian!

Thanks for those Ian.

This is an example of the timetable Royal Mail are working to. They send emails in this form to we dealers, which gives us a target for getting back to the computer and adding the latest image.

Team GB Gold Medal Win Confirmation - Team GB: Cycling Track: Men's Team Sprint

This e-mail confirms the latest Team GB Gold Medal Win:

Product code: GMW05
Athlete Name : Team GB ( Chris Hoy, Philip Hindes, Jason Kenny)
Sport: Cycling Track: Men's Team Sprint
Date of win: 2nd August 2012
Time of win: 18:59
Expected LOCOG approval: 20:59
Expected image on digital library: 21:44

Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins win gold in the women's double sculls final.



And the first two used on the day of issue (sadly without the cds - yet):

Popped into my local post office today to be told that he had just four sets left of today's delivery and none of any of the other Gold Medal winners. It appears that people are snapping them up as fast as they can be produced!

The first words out of his mouth when I asked about the Gold Medal stamps was 'Bradley Wiggins has completely sold out'! Thought that was a bit harsh myself, after all he's still a man of the people with those sideburns

Jon

You wait four years and then, like London buses, three cycling medals come along (one yesterday).

Team GB shattered their own world record as they defended the men's Olympic pursuit title to win Friday's second gold medal for Britain. The quartet of Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas, Steven Burke and Peter Kennaugh clocked three minutes 51.659 seconds to knock nearly a second off the world record they set in qualifying.



Victoria Pendleton wins cycling gold for GB in women's keirin

I'm going to try and buy some of these, just two stamps of each, not interested in the minisheets. I'm not bothering posting them as they won't get a decent cancel these days.

drh wrote:I'm going to try and buy some of these, just two stamps of each, not interested in the minisheets. I'm not bothering posting them as they won't get a decent cancel these days.

Our Post Office is only selling them as mini sheets and I've not heard of anywhere that is splitting them. So six first class stamps at £3.60, keep two and use the other four as postage? At least one should get a decent cancel

Jon

Surely that's illegal? Mine got her scissors out and cut me out the stamps yesterday. Minisheets are a scam.

drh wrote:Surely that's illegal? Mine got her scissors out and cut me out the stamps yesterday. Minisheets are a scam.

I'd not actually considered the legalities of the process but I'm guessing that it can't be illegal for them ask me to buy a whole sheet and not split them. If that were the case then I'd be insisting that Tesco split that multi pack of whatever to sell me one and I can't see that happening just yet... Sure they can split them if they want to but the whole idea is that you want the sheet for all the additional information on it around the stamps, including for any team medals, the names of the winners.

As to them being a scam, as I've said repeatedly Royal Mail treat collectors as a cash cow and this decision is motivated more by revenue considerations than anything else. The very last mint GB stamps I get will be this Christmas edition after which I'm stopping collecting new issues as I simply cannot afford to keep up with them.

These Olympics sheets and FDC's were marketed beforehand as 'subscribe to the FDC's and Mini Sheets and get the 20th Free!' Assuming a medal tally of 19 golds (as per Beijing) the price would be £143.64. We're currently on 8 golds with the track & field starting now, Murray in the tennis final....if it comes in under £200 I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Remember this £200 is on top of an already packed issue calendar, including the highest value single stamp in a set we've ever had (Dickens). So this year, just to keep up with FDC's and mint stamps I reckon around £450. And that's officially too much.

Jon

You don't have to buy FDCs, minisheets or any of that rubbish you know! What motivates you to do so? It can't be invetsment as all that stuff will be as valuable as a Franklin Mint Lady Di Elvis Guitar Chess Set in 30 years. Plain old stamps take up less space too!

As for legalities, Royal Mail just tweeted that you can buy them individually, and asks for people to report on POs that refuse to cut up sheets.

drh wrote:Surely that's illegal? Mine got her scissors out and cut me out the stamps yesterday. Minisheets are a scam.

In most POs due to shortage of initial supplies these are being sold as miniature sheets, but POs are allowed to split them. If they are not doing so it is because they anticipate (correctly) that customers will not object to paying for the whole sheet.

One PO sold the MS in sealed envelopes claiming that they were not valid for postage until after the games. Stamp Magazine got on the case and the power of twitter should mean that PO Ltd and RM Ltd kick a few a**es in the deep south west!

JonEboy wrote:Remember this £200 is on top of an already packed issue calendar, including the highest value single stamp in a set we've ever had (Dickens). So this year, just to keep up with FDC's and mint stamps I reckon around £450. And that's officially too much.

Jon

And some people are collecting a MS for each printer (6), or even an A4 sheet for each printer for each medal....

And the first sheets have appeared on eBay already.

norvic wrote:Shooter Peter Wilson won Britain's fourth gold medal of the London Olympics with victory in the double trap competition.
(It seems that of all the pictures available through Getty Images this was the best they could find of Wilson.)

Not a really flattering thing to show the kids & grandkids..."Look, I was on a stamp when I was younger ... here it is, the back of my head."

norvic wrote:One PO sold the MS in sealed envelopes claiming that they were not valid for postage until after the games.

Wow, doesn't take much to get a job working in/running a PO these days.

norvic wrote:

JonEboy wrote:Remember this £200 is on top of an already packed issue calendar, including the highest value single stamp in a set we've ever had (Dickens). So this year, just to keep up with FDC's and mint stamps I reckon around £450. And that's officially too much.

Jon

And some people are collecting a MS for each printer (6), or even an A4 sheet for each printer for each medal....

Surely people like them need help? I bet they get no pleasure whatsoever from their addiction!

aethelwulf wrote:

norvic wrote:Shooter Peter Wilson won Britain's fourth gold medal of the London Olympics with victory in the double trap competition.
(It seems that of all the pictures available through Getty Images this was the best they could find of Wilson.)

Not a really flattering thing to show the kids & grandkids..."Look, I was on a stamp when I was younger ... here it is, the back of my head."

Ha ha! I bet even Equatorial Guinea could come up with a better design than that one!

aethelwulf wrote:

norvic wrote:Shooter Peter Wilson won Britain's fourth gold medal of the London Olympics with victory in the double trap competition.
(It seems that of all the pictures available through Getty Images this was the best they could find of Wilson.)

Not a really flattering thing to show the kids & grandkids..."Look, I was on a stamp when I was younger ... here it is, the back of my head."

I think the problem with shooters is that there are only shots from the back, or of a 'bullet', if you want an action shot. The picture of the ladies on the podium is certainly the clearest and the most identifiable but if you want action shots then you get protective equipment as well - as with the cyclists.

drh wrote:Surely people like them need help? I bet they get no pleasure whatsoever from their addiction!

I've wondered how much pleasure you get from collecting stamps as well

norvic wrote: And some people are collecting a MS for each printer (6), or even an A4 sheet for each printer for each medal....

At least some future discount postage is ensured.

Norm

And they're NVI stamps so collectors won't lose too badly on their investment when some of the stamps end up in the postage folder someday...not like seeing 39p or whatever go from paying for a local 1st letter to paying 2nd class, to paying half a local letter, to...

Kat Copeland turned to Sophie Hosking as they won their gold medal just now, and the first words out of her mouth were "We're going to be on a stamp tomorrow!"

Nice one girls!

Selling them in minisheets is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. There are bound to be lots of youngsters who would want these gold medal stamps, but if they're told they have to buy a dozen at £3.60 rather than one each, they may as well stick to Panini stickers.

drh wrote:Selling them in minisheets is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. There are bound to be lots of youngsters who would want these gold medal stamps, but if they're told they have to buy a dozen at £3.60 rather than one each, they may as well stick to Panini stickers.

Unless 6 friends get together and pool their money.

drh wrote:Selling them in minisheets is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. There are bound to be lots of youngsters who would want these gold medal stamps, but if they're told they have to buy a dozen at £3.60 rather than one each, they may as well stick to Panini stickers.

Your needle is stuck.

The stamps are available as singles - and who collects stickers from bread rolls?

The last of Friday's and the first of Saturday's gold medal stamps

Victoria Pendleton wins cycling gold for GB in women's keirin.


Great Britain won the Olympic title in the men's coxless four for the fourth successive Games, edging out Australia in a thrilling race at Eton Dorney. Pete Reed, Andy Triggs Hodge, Tom James and Alex Gregory clocked 6 minutes 3.97 seconds.


Katherine Copeland and Sophie Hosking won the women's lightweight double sculls to claim Britain's fourth rowing gold medal of the London Olympics.


Britain's dominance in the velodrome continued as their women's team pursuit trio set a new world record to clinch Olympic gold in style. Dani King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell clocked 3 minutes 14.051 seconds to beat the world record they set in the first round.
Stamp image to follow

This could be a good time to be Australian, financially speaking - only one gold medal winner to commemorate philatelically.

Katherine Copeland and Sophie Hosking won the women's lightweight double sculls to claim Britain's fourth rowing gold medal of the London Olympics.

I watched that race - they were mighty impressive. At the end they seemed in shock at their achievement "We've won the Olympic final - we're going to be on a stamp tomorrow" WOW!

Even if it was only for the proud mums and dads of these dedicated athletes, I think it is great the way that Royal Mail have instigated this Gold Medal Stamp series. The fact that the athletes are obviously talking about them is great.

Royal Mail have made a few goofs along the way and no doubt will make a bob or two out of it but I think these stamps are worth the effort. It is a new departure for them. The old rule of not depicting living people (other than the royal family) on stamps seems to have been torpedoed.

If enough people don't buy the gold medal stamps they'll be scarce. If everybody buys them they won't.

If you're old enough to remember back to 1966, 4d England Winners stamps were selling for £1 (60 x face) or more just a few weeks after release. Nowadays the price is back to 4d (more or less).

The Pom wrote:This could be a good time to be Australian, financially speaking - only one gold medal winner to commemorate philatelically.

I recall during the Beijing Olympics that there was a lot of discussion about Australia winning more golds per head of population than GB.

I must have missed the news story about the population of Australia being decimated in four short years. Was it war, famine or pestilience

Stay safe all you Aussie stampboarders - it must be hell out there

When we were racking up ythe gold medals in Beijing, the bemused Aussie media had to find something to scoff at - so they said that GB only won medals sittting down

Didn't see much sitting down in the Olympic stadium last night - apart from Greg Rutherford as he landed after his gold medal jump!!

Tony

PS What's happened to the Australian swimmers? Used to be a guaranteed half dozen golds there. Still, I'm there on Tuesday to watch Sally Pearson in the 100m hurdles, that's a nailed on gold

glencottage wrote:

I'm there on Tuesday to watch Sally Pearson in the 100m hurdles, that's a nailed on gold

Maybe only because Jessica Ennis ( Gold ! Bless her) has decided not to run in that event after her spectacular heptathlon !

lesbootman wrote:Today (Saturday) I went to the sub post office near home to se eif they had any gold medal stamps yet. They had the first two so I asked for a mini sheet of 6 of each. The guy dutifully tore off a miniature sheet of each type from his supply (the mini sheets are printed en masse and roulette type perforations separate the mini sheets along the long sides.

He put them in a little envelope printed with olympics info and then charged me £7.80. I had been up since about 3:00 am so it did not dawn on me straight away hat this was wrong. I looked at the receipt and saw that he had charged me 60p for two fdc envelopes. I went back and pointed out that these were useless because it was not the first day of issue - that was last week some time.

He showed me his "painting by numbers" instruction book for selling the gold medal stamps and it told him that he had to sell a fdc envelope with each sheet.

When I pointed out that a first day cover needed to be used on the day of issue and he did not have the stamps on the day of issue he was flummoxed.

This is wrong on so many counts.

1. The sale of a fdc with each sheet is not compulsory whatever he thought those instructions said. Otherwise I would have been forced to buy 45 this morning when I bought today's and yesterday's.

2. It takes no account of the people who want mint stamps and not FDCs, especially those who only want a single stamp cut from the sheet - which they are supposed to do, though they haven't in most places acknowledged that.

3. And the need to post the stamps on the day of issue to get a FD postmark is also wrong in this case, especially as most offices won't get the stamps on the day of issue. 510+ get them on the day of issue, another 4500+ in weekly batches.

All FDCs from whatever office will be sent to Tallents House Edinburgh. From there they will be batched up and sent to the regional Special Handstamp Centres. But the plan is that instead of spreading an issue over all 5 of the SHCs, each DATE will only be processed by ONE SHC. Thus, as an example which is pure guesswork, Cardiff will take the first day when there were two, Birmingham will take the second set of 3, London will take the 3rd date which has 6 - London has more postmarking machines than anywhere.

Collectors sending their own FDCs by post, rather than handing them over the counter, MUST send them to Edinburgh for batching and distribution. If they send them to the nearest SHC, they will send them on to Edinburgh anyway. Collectors have until a date in September to send in their FDCs so they can send them in one big package if they want to!

All the details are on our webpage and blog and additional information is added to the blog daily.

Complain to Post Office Counters Customer service on 08457 22 33 44*. Lines are open from 8.15am - 6.00pm Monday to Friday and 8.30am - 2.00pm Saturday.

Email me the name of the PO and I'll refer it to Post Office & Royal Mail via twitter - they do want to know where things are going wrong.