Important information for customers of Norvic Philatelics - December 2007

Greetings to all our customers!

This message is to inform you of a major change in our business operations. As most of you know we have been producing our own first day covers for new British stamp issues for the last 5 years, since the 2003 Birds of Prey issue. We have been encouraged by the support we have received from many customers in this venture, but changes in our circumstances and the increasing volume of new issues by Royal Mail mean that this can no longer continue. There is simply not the time to do justice to the product, and it is better to stop - or at least reduce our output - rather than let quality suffer.

But first the good news! We will continue to operate the website as the number 1 resource for information about Great Britain stamps (in all formats) and special postmarks, and other matters which we think will be of interest to collectors and 'GB-watchers'. We will continue for all new special stamps and definitives to service Royal Mail first day covers and PHQ cards (stamp cards) with any available postmark. We will continue to provide a postmark service to all the collectors of thematic/topical postmarks. And we will continue to co-operate with our customers around the world, especially in China, in the creation of unique maximum cards. We will also offer Cotswold and Stuart covers for many issues as an alternative to Royal Mail - Cotswold/Stuart are the only company to sell blank covers.

We will also continue to produce Norvic covers, in the short term, for selected stamp issues, in particular those which are part of a series (for instance Lest We Forget MS & Smilers, Celebrating Northern Ireland MS) and for some other issues for which Royal Mail does not produce a first day cover. More precise details of this will be provided in due course: we will be covering the James Bond issue - set, MS and prestige stamp book.

Why the change?
There are several reasons.
In 2003 we produced 39 covers in 30 designs. (Not all designs were essential, for instance we did three different designs for the Birds of Prey because it was difficult to put a good design on a standard DL envelope. When we found a source for larger envelopes, cover design became easier, especially for miniature sheets and prestige stamp book panes.) In 2004 this increased to 49 covers in 43 designs, 2005 had 50 covers in 36 designs, 2006 shot up to 70 covers in 45 designs and this year we have 73 covers in 49 designs! And that doesn't include the definitive and country stamps and others which we do only on Royal Mail covers. Often we have stacks of three different issues as 'work in progress' waiting for all covers to be returned from the handstamp centres before orders can finally be sent to you.

Cover production has been difficult when copyright issues got in the way - Lord of the Rings, The Beatles, and Harry Potter were problematic, James Bond also presents difficulties, and we have been told that, for the Rescue at Sea set next March, the RNLI are unwilling to allow any of their lifeboats to appear on covers! What should be easy is becoming very difficult - this side of the business is no longer as much fun as it was when we started.

As most of you know this is a small family business: Ian, the stamp collector for over 50 years, Val my long suffering wife who has put up with this for over 30 years, and our son John. John is now in a more demanding job and is unable to help on the design side, although he still provides technical input. We have decided that we need more leisure time and we can only get this by reducing the Norvic Cover output. In 2007 we really only had a two-week break, in September.

Anybody my age who is fortunate enough to have parents still alive will appreciate that they are in their 80s. If they needed our long term attention we would have to abandon the business to help them - as you all would in the same circumstances. That would let down our customers for an indefinite period, and that is something we cannot do. We do appreciate the solid support of our customers some of whom buy every cover, some buy all Smilers, some buy now and then, but you come back - and we want to continue to serve you as much as we can.

More good news!
Many of you have visited our online store where we list all new stamps and covers (though not always as early as I would like to). There are many more older GB stamps and fdcs to be added, as well as stamps, fdcs, maximum cards, postal history, picture postcards etc from all around the world. What is there now is small fraction of what is available and we want to add more for you to browse through, and hopefully to enhance your collections.

Ian, Val & John Billings
Norvic Philatelics,
PO Box 119, Dereham,
NR20 3YN, Great Britain
Telephone: 08450 09 09 39

H O M E
Online store: http://www.norphil.co.uk/catalog