Royal Mail will mark the 250th anniversary of one of the greatest voyages of discovery in history on August 16, with the Captain Cook set of six counter sheet stamps and the Endeavour Voyage miniature sheet of four.
Lieutenant James Cook set sail from Plymouth on August 26, 1768, on the first of his three famous voyages to the outer reaches of the known world.
Also on board HMB Endeavour were nearly 100 men, including astronomers, artists and scientists.
This year’s Royal Mail’s Christmas stamps, released on November 4, feature outdoor scenes of a secular family Christmas by illustrator Andrew Bannecker.
Charming and colourful images depict British family Christmas traditions, from carol singing and ice skating to posting cards and buying trees, all taking place in light snowfall.
As usual they come in a set of seven, available in self-adhesive counter sheets and a gummed miniature sheet, with the 2nd Large and 1st Large designs being expanded versions of the standard 2nd class and 1st class designs.
Royal Mail’s 2015 Christmas stamps, issued on November 3, feature paintings which tell the traditional biblical story in an impressionistic style, from the Annunciation through to the Nativity and the journey of the Magi.
The 50th set of Christmas stamps (with one having been issued every year since 1966), they follow the recent policy of alternating between secular with religious designs.
As usual, the issue comprises self-adhesive counter sheet and booklet stamps, and the same designs in a gummed miniature sheet.
This year’s Christmas set, issued on November 8, celebrates some of the key secular traditions of the season: decorating the Christmas tree, lighting a lantern, hanging out a stocking, eating a Christmas pudding and making a snowman.
It also illustrates one of the old favourites of seasonal stamp issues, a robin, whose popularity on greetings cards is said to have been inspired by the red coats worn by Victorian postmen.
For the second year in succession, the set comprises six different designs for eight stamps, with the two values for large letters using enlarged versions of the standard 2nd class and 1st class designs.
Royal Mail’s Christmas issue, released on November 7, has two distinct elements, as it did in 2013.
A set of eight has various depictions of the Madonna & Child after old paintings, available from self-adhesive counter sheets (and booklets) and a gummed miniature sheet as usual.
A further set of four, available in self-adhesive guise only, features the two winning designs from a children’s competition, which attracted more than 200,000 entries.
This year’s Christmas stamp issue, released on November 1, is entitled Royal Mail Delivering Christmas, and shows scenes of everyday life with the postbox at their centre.
A range of pedestal, wall and pillar boxes are featured, from six different reigns, in urban and rural settings, but all in suitably wintry conditions.
As in other recent Christmas issues, eight values are available in self-adhesive guise from counter sheets, and they also appear together in a gummed miniature sheet.
Royal Mail’s Christmas stamps, released on November 5, take a religious approach this year, featuring classy biblical scenes created by paper-cut artists Hari & Deepti.
With clever use of light and shade, and depth of colour, they bring the Christmas story to life in intricate detail, with the Star of Bethlehem as a constant thread.
As in recent years there are eight self-adhesive stamps, including standard and Large versions of the 2nd class and 1st class values.
This year’s Christmas stamp issue, released on November 3, features stained-glass nativity scenes from town and village churches around England.
The nativity was a popular subject in stained-glass art from the 13th century onwards, often focusing on the relationship between the Virgin Mary and the new-born Jesus.
Each of the stamps shows a detail of a window from an Anglican church, showcasing the extraordinary craftmanship of the artists working in this highly specialised genre, and encompassing a range of styles, techniques and eras.
This year’s Christmas stamp issue from Royal Mail, released on November 2, differs significantly from those of recent years to allow for the inclusion of ‘barcoded’ stamps for the first time.
Their designs follows that of the large-format 2nd class Machin definitive issued in business sheets in March.
The digitally scannable element (technically not a barcode but a data matrix code) is to the right of the pictorial element, separated from it by a line which resembles a perforation.
For customers who would prefer secular stamps to religious stamps, Royal Mail has issued extra 1st class and 2nd class designs this Christmas, based on paintings by primary school children.
The winners of a competition launched in the summer were Molly Robson, aged 7, and Rosie Hargreaves, aged 10.
A staggering 240,000 entries were whittled down to 120 regional finalists and then a shortlist of 24 national finalists by a judging panel which included the Prince of Wales, Lauren Child, the author of the Charlie & Lola books, and Tasveer Shemza, who was six when she designed a stamp for Royal Mail’s first ever Christmas issue in 1966.
Royal Mail’s first stamp issue of 2014, Classic Children’s TV, will celebrate much-loved animated characters drawn from more than 60 years of British television.
The release of 12 free-form self-adhesive stamps on January 7 roughly coincides with the 10th anniversary of Peppa Pig, the 40th anniversary of Bagpuss and the 50th anniversary of The Magic Roundabout.
Designed by the Interabang agency, the set was printed by International Security Printers (Walsall) in gravure.
The second miniature sheet in Royal Mail’s railway tour of the UK will be released on March 8.
Classic Locomotives of Scotland features four different types of engine, two in colour photographs and two in black and white, with a background image of LNER Class K2 2-6-0 crossing Glenfinnan Viaduct in the Highlands in 1947.
The sheet was designed by Delaney, and printed in litho by Cartor.
The last in the Classic Locomotives series of miniature sheets, featuring Welsh railways, will be released on February 20.
Its four stamps illustrate two engines pulling passenger trains and two in industrial use; the earliest railways in Wales were built for industrial purposes, serving collieries and smelting works.
The sheet border has a background image of the British Railways class 5101 No4126 locomotive hauling a passenger train across the Crumlin Viaduct in Monmouthshire, which was the third highest railway viaduct in the world but was dismantled in 1967.
