Post Office refuses to sell single Gold Medal stamps

juliebunny

I would have loved a full set of these, but what a stupid cost. So a friend and I each decided to collect a set of one stamp of each of the 29 gold medal winners. We bought a set between us (over £104) and cut them up ourselves (not exactly hardcore stamp collectors but general concensus is that too many have been issued for them ever to be more than hobbiest collectables). No way we were going to spend that much on stamps. It's a big money spinner that they've done them 6 to a page so it is very expensive to collect them all. I believe it will be sets of 2 (?) for the paralympic stamps?

The Post office did tell us that they were instructed to NOT split them up, but the one near work had LOADS left so sooner or later they will have to do so. Also, when she pulled out the envelope they had been placed in, another assistant had already chopped a couple of sets up anyway for another customer - oops.

We are now deciding whether to ebay them or just keep and use but now Ebay is flooded with set of one each of the 29 now (and even people just selling ONE stamp!).

Given that they don't have a stated value, they seem like a good investment to way postage prices are going up! But like most people, I really can't remember the last time I posted a letter, so they will last for YEARS.

custardy

juliebunny wrote: »

I would have loved a full set of these, but what a stupid cost. So a friend and I each decided to collect a set of one stamp of each of the 29 gold medal winners. We bought a set between us (over £104) and cut them up ourselves (not exactly hardcore stamp collectors but general concensus is that too many have been issued for them ever to be more than hobbiest collectables). No way we were going to spend that much on stamps. It's a big money spinner that they've done them 6 to a page so it is very expensive to collect them all. I believe it will be sets of 2 (?) for the paralympic stamps?

The Post office did tell us that they were instructed to NOT split them up, but the one near work had LOADS left so sooner or later they will have to do so. Also, when she pulled out the envelope they had been placed in, another assistant had already chopped a couple of sets up anyway for another customer - oops.

We are now deciding whether to ebay them or just keep and use but now Ebay is flooded with set of one each of the 29 now (and even people just selling ONE stamp!).

Given that they don't have a stated value, they seem like a good investment to way postage prices are going up! But like most people, I really can't remember the last time I posted a letter, so they will last for YEARS.

what will be your plan when Royal Mail is gone?

Sally22_2

They were allowed to split them, all offices got a memo view of how to process them.

Basically they had to take the money and sell it under the single special stamp icon, then once they had sold six identical stamps this way they would have to reverse them and put it through under the correct icon.

I guess at the end of the day its their discretion whether they do it or not.

juliebunny

custardy wrote: »

what will be your plan when Royal Mail is gone?

Er.....i'll go to plan B (donate them to our local animal shelter who collect stamps...).

NBLondon

juliebunny wrote: »

We are now deciding whether to ebay them or just keep and use but now Ebay is flooded with set of one each of the 29 now (and even people just selling ONE stamp!).

Yep - as Azari and I predicted. A lot of collectors will try and guess which issues will be more popular with non-collectors then order extra and eBay the surplus. The Harry Potter set from a few years back had the same thing. The first few sellers will make a profit from people who couldn't get them from RM and the rest will then end up with stock hanging around.

Possible routes are:

A) wait say 15 months and put them on eBay again in the hope of catching the odd customer (possibly overseas)

if you're creative add value by mounting/framing them nicely or alongside a nice photo of one of the winners and try to sell that at a craft fair or something.

juliebunny wrote: »

Given that they don't have a stated value, they seem like a good investment to way postage prices are going up! But like most people, I really can't remember the last time I posted a letter, so they will last for YEARS.

Well, they are good for first class postage as long as RM exists so when the next price rise is announced, you might be able to sell them at a small profit over what you paid - say halfway between 60p and the new price. Might be a few years. Or as custardy says - if RM get sold on - all bets could be off.

juliebunny

I wasn't aware that they were thinking of selling off RM but surely they would honour their stamps for a while at least? Maybe that would make them collectable

I didn't know there were Harry Potter stamp....I may be a new stamp collector in the making!

I did get the Olympic £5 coin too, I'm under no illusions of that being a money spinner, just thought it was pretty....(sucker I hear you say!)

custardy

juliebunny wrote: »

I wasn't aware that they were thinking of selling off RM but surely they would honour their stamps for a while at least? Maybe that would make them collectable

I didn't know there were Harry Potter stamp....I may be a new stamp collector in the making!

I did get the Olympic £5 coin too, I'm under no illusions of that being a money spinner, just thought it was pretty....(sucker I hear you say!)

Werent aware?
Various Governents have been deperatly trying to sell of RM.
Now the wheels are in motion (eg the pension deficit being taken away from RM,Post Office being split from RM etc)
Who knows what the plan will be with stamps

NBLondon

juliebunny wrote: »

I didn't know there were Harry Potter stamp....I may be a new stamp collector in the making!

Here's the first link Google finds. Face value is 12x1st or £7.20. The premium is for the rest of the pack. There's also these - face value is £6.

I'm not a philatelist (I'm a deltiologist) but I know a few so... collect them because you're interested in them. Collecting them in the hope of making money out of it is a proper business requiring knowledge, investment in stock and possibly long waits for the value to increase. There's plenty of people already trying to do this.

You may get lucky by finding something in a jumble sale or boot fair that's going for a pound and can be sold for a fiver - but you've got to know what to look for and be in quick.

juliebunny

NBLondon wrote: »

Here's the first link Google finds. Face value is 12x1st or £7.20. The premium is for the rest of the pack. There's also these - face value is £6.

I'm not a philatelist (I'm a deltiologist) but I know a few so... collect them because you're interested in them. Collecting them in the hope of making money out of it is a proper business requiring knowledge, investment in stock and possibly long waits for the value to increase. There's plenty of people already trying to do this.

You may get lucky by finding something in a jumble sale or boot fair that's going for a pound and can be sold for a fiver - but you've got to know what to look for and be in quick.

Well I had to google deltiologist - postcard collector - my sister wants the equestrian olympic postcard set, they look really nice!
I used to collect these as a child, just as a hobby. We were your averagely poor single parent family, so this was the only thing I could ever afford to buy in the gift shop but I enjoyed them too.

I sooo agree that I would never collect anything unless I enjoyed doing it. Not much point in stuffing it away in the drawer for 20 years in the hope it may go up in value and I'm such a hoarder I never can sell anything anyway :rotfl: