miniature sheets

Two issues I'm really looking forward to this year are the miniature sheets being issued for the London 2010 Festival of Stamps. Perhaps the appeal is that they draw mainly on stamp design from King George V's time.

But these issues both heighten some real concerns I have about the PO in the UK. Most of these stamps will simply not be seen by the general public. They'll be available from the Bureau of course, but how many will see actual postal use? I'll use plenty of course, but the average person in the street won't even know they exist. My village PO doesn't even publicise new stamp issues any more, and that's with my influence. The fact they are in mini sheet form makes it even worse.

I'll use the sheets and the stamps from the sheets. The £1 values are particularly attractive.

So my first point is that to really push stamps they need to be widely available, widely publicised and easy to buy, from all POs. My second point is that Stanley Gibbons is complicit in this whole process of pushing certain stamp issues as purely 'collectables'. These stamps will not get a full listing in their catalogues, only the sheets will be listed. So no catalogue number for the individual stamps. This is crazy.

When listing stamps I often get single stamps from miniature sheets that have been used for a proper postal service. This doesn't only apply to British stamps but stamps from many countries - France and Austria spring to mind. Again no SG numbers for these.

People come to collecting from seeing stamps every day in their regular posts. By forcing commemorative issues into the background the PO is basically reducing its future income from collectors. Stanley Gibbons are making this process worse by regarding miniature sheets at least as purely collectables, when in fact they are often very useful when broken up to stamp mail! Stamps should first and foremost exist to stamp mail. Selling mint issues as a sideline is fine, but used stamps should always be the backbone of stamp collecting as it's a cheap and easy way of getting into the hobby.