Royal Mail will issue a Marvel Super Heroes set of stamps on March 14, marking the 80th anniversary of the famous comic stories.
Ten stamps sold in counter sheets illustrate popular characters, all facing the viewer in dynamic action poses.
A further five stamps are contained in a miniature sheet which takes the form of a specially commissioned comic strip entitled Marvel Heroes UK, with a storyline loosely set in London.
Royal Mail is marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci on February 13, with a set of 12 stamps featuring a selection of his drawings held by the Royal Collection.
The 550 drawings in the collection were acquired by King Charles II around 1670 and are one of the world’s most important hoards of Leonardo’s original work.
Almost 150 examples are being displayed separately at 12 museums and galleries across the UK this year, and then subsequently together in the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace.
The Stamp Classics miniature sheet, to be issued on January 15, is billed as a celebration of Royal Mail’s history, and of organised philately, on the occasion of 150th anniversary of the Royal Philatelic Society London and the 50th anniversary of the opening of the original Postal Museum by the Queen.
Its three 1st class and three £1.
55 values are all simple stamp-on-stamp designs, each highlighting a key issue from a different reign.
Royal Mail issued a miniature sheet of six stamps to mark the 70th birthday of the Prince of Wales on November 14.
All based on photographs, the images depict Prince Charles undertaking official duties and with his family.
The border shows the heraldic badge of the Prince of Wales, with its three white ostrich feathers emerging from a gold coronet and the motto ‘Ich Dien’ (‘I serve’, in German), and has a bilingual inscription in Welsh and English.
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.
Continuing its decade-long fascination with film and television franchises, Royal Mail will release a special issue devoted to the Harry Potter films on October 16.
Ten sheet stamps illustrate some of the best known young characters and modes of transport from the films, while a five-stamp miniature sheet depicts professors from Hogwarts School, setagainst a background of the magical Marauder’s Map.
All the images are based on film or publicity stills, and Royal Mail says the stamps have hidden details visible only under ultra-violet light.
Royal Mail concludes its poignant five-year series commemorating the centenary of the Great War on September 13, with the First World War 1918 set.
Like each of the preceding issues, it focuses on one year of the world-changing conflict, with one stamp exploring each of six themes: poppies, poetry, portraits, art, memorials and artefacts.
They concentrate less on how the war changed the course of history, and more on its impact on individual lives, millions of which were ended or transformed.
Royal Mail issued a set of eight stamps on August 30 to mark the bicentenary of The Old Vic theatre, one of the most influential venues in the history of the British performing arts.
Opened in May 1818, on reclaimed marshland south of the newly built Waterloo Bridge in London, the Old Vic was originally called the Royal Coburg Theatre, and from 1833 the Royal Victoria.
It adopted its current name after 1871, when it was rebuilt with a finer 2,300-seater auditorium.
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.
Royal Mail will issue a set of six stamps and a four-stamp miniature sheet devoted to Hampton Court Palace on July 31.
Located beside the River Thames west of London, this is the most extensive surviving Tudor building in England, and one of the grandest palaces in Britain, ranked among its top historic tourist attractions.
Given by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey to King Henry VIII, who loved it as a place to hold court and go hunting, it was developed into the most modern royal residences of the early 16th century.
