British stamps and postmarks: news information and pictures from the web's No 1 resource

Welcome to Norvic Philatelics GB stamps pages - if you cannot see our logo either we have a problem, or your browser is not image enabled. The content of this site is mostly pictures of stamps and postmarks, so you will miss out if your browser is set to not show images.


Welcome to Norvic Philatelics

H e l l o !! great britain stamp

We try to be the web's number 1 resource for up-to-date news about new stamps of Great Britain.

The 2025 stamp programme is underway and is really no better than previous years'. With the Vicar of Dibley and the Australian band AC/DC things do seem to be going in a downward direction. The full year programme has now been published, with still more for which the reason is obscure!

This website - and eventually the business - was created over twenty years ago in 1998 with the Lighthouses stamp issue. We have recreated and updated those pages here.  The story of our first 20 years is on the blog here.
 
As it is much quicker for us to write a blog entry than to update a website, our very latest news will be on our blog. The last 4 blog entries are summarised in the column to the right.

E-MAILing us: Many pages have clickable 'email' links. If you write, please use the SUBJECT line in your mail to indicate which stamp issue you are writing about.


COPYRIGHT This website is copyright Norvic Philatelics; please ask for permission before using this material. All pictures of new stamps and other Royal Mail products are copyrighted by Royal Mail and are reproduced here with their kind permission. 

Webmasters, publishers, students and schools may copy Royal Mail images from our site, but the use of these images must be cleared with Royal Mail Intellectual Property office by clicking on this link.

Please do not 'hotlink' to our images; if you want to use them, copy them (right click) and host them on your own space. Thank you!


If you need anything for your collection which isn't shown here - please ask, we may have it. Our webshop has stamps, fdcs, booklets, postal stationery, world postal history, maximum cards, picture postcards, with integrated shipping and payment facilities.


We also have a site devoted to the stamps and postal history of the countries of the Former Soviet Union in the 1990s. This is a fascinating area of modern postal history and we hope to find time away from GB new issues to develop this site to show material from Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Lithuania etc, as well as Belarus which is already shown.  You can see it here.


Great Britain Postage due stamps 1994.WANTED! 1994 Postage Due/To Pay stamps

For my personal collection I am  interested in buying examples of the 1994 issue 'To Pay' stamps properly used on cover or parcel piece.
The values issued are 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 25p, £1, £1.20 & £5, all in the same design.
Please email.



NORFOLK STAMP FAIRS

The next Norfolk & Norwich Philatelic Society Stamp Fair is on 12 April 2025

The 2024/25 meeting programme & committee details has been added - see the above link.

Fair details  here

Fairs previously run by Arun Stamps at Bowthorpe have been postponed indefinitely due to the Home Office taking over the hotel for housing asylum seekers.


External links

Information on external sites is the responsibility of the respective site owners. We review links periodically to ensure that they are still valid and apologise for any 'broken' links that there may be.

If you find any links which are broken or which are no longer relevant, please email Broken link and we will investigate and make corrections where we can. Thank you.

DIARY DATE!

2025 SALISBURY STAMP & POSTCARD SHOW

26-27 September 2025
Five Rivers Leisure Centre Salisbury SP1 3NR
£2.20 King Charles III definitive stamp with datamatrix.

Is this the most boring colour of a really unflattering definitive? Apparently not as subsequent replacement airmail values were just as bad!   (£2.50 and £.280)


UPDATE 7 April 2025  -

The last edition (Version 2.6.10) of our Machin Security Checklist which is now available.  It can be downloaded here.

We will continue to publish news about Royal Mail's new philatelic products and other items of interest on the blog.

Our online shop remains open, but some stock will be offered through lists available through the blog.

Now available DISCOUNT  POSTAGE - as a result of the Royal Mail Machin invalidation and SwapOut we have a  large amount of postage available at good prices if you need some despite being a collector! 

This includes definitives special issues, & Post and Go, 1st class and Airmail.  Large letter stamps to follow.

However, if you are a regular customer or blog contributor, please contact for even better special prices.


Thanks to our supporters!

Our blog now has over 9,600,000 visits -

click here

thank you to all our contributors and readers!

For postal history modern and older, see here.

The snippet feed is restored - thank you Feedwind


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where you can take part in discussions on a wide-range of philatelic subjects, learn from the expertise of others, and maybe help other collectors.
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Stampboards - please read the forum rules and, once registered, introduce yourself in the appropriate message thread.



SITE MAP

Coming very soon

PHILANGLIA 2025

21 June 2025, 10:00 – 15:30
Burgess Hall
, Westwood Road,
St Ives, Cambridgeshire PE27 6WU

With over 25 local & national dealers this is one of the largest fairs in East Anglia.

Organised by

ARUN STAMPS
01328 829318 / 07881 812523 / arunstamps.co.uk

If you are interested in Postal History of the World we will be producing another blog on interesting items and their stories, some of which are for sale on our e-commerce site.

1928 cover from New Zealand to England with UK posyage rates information added to the reverse by postmarking machine.

click on the image!

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

*Only between 0900 and 1700 UK time please Monday - Friday. (Before calling, please check UK time shown at the top of the page!). 

Calls to this number will cost 7ppm plus your phone
company's access charge.

Many people now have 0845 calls in a package. If you do not, & do not want to pay for phone calls, please email, or TEXT to 07765 858 457. Our signal strength varies and texts get through easier than calls!

If you are interested in Great Britain Modern Postal History, please visit our second blog - click on the image!


Wembley lion invalid at sheffield 2023.jpg 

If you collect Great Britain First Day Covers,
join the Association of GB FDC Collectors - click the logo.
Association of GB FDC collectors http://www.gbfdc.co.uk

Buying from outside the United Kingdom? 
Pay us with your Visa, MasterCard, or American Express card
through PayPal! 

Within the UK pay quickly by bank transfer! Ask for details! 

Paypal logo.

Pages for GB Stamp Issues.


Great Britain Stamps - issue programme for 2018

Year Programmes:  2019  2020  2021  2022  2023  2024  2025 


Links to stamp issues for
2_0_0_3
2_0_0_4
2_0_0_5
2_0_0_6
2_0_0_7
2_0_0_8
2_0_0_9
2_0_1_0
2_0_1_1
2_0_1_2
2_0_1_3
2_0_1_4
2_0_1_5
2_0_1_6
2_0_1_7

    Hawker Hurricane fighter. Tawny Owl chicks on stamp. Royal Acadmey St Kilda stamp. Dad's Army booklet stamp.

23 January Game of Thrones: set, MS, PSB, RB, Collectors Sheet, Post and Go etc
14 February Post and Go: Postal Heritage Mail by Sea
15 February Centenary of Women's Suffrage: Votes for Women
20 March Royal Air Force Centenary
20 March Postage Tariff changes, Machin and Country Definitives, including changed font on 2nd & 1st Country Definitives
17 April Reintroduced Species 
11 May Owls
19 May Royal Wedding 
1 June 150th Anniversary of Trades Union Congress Commemorative Sheet 
5 June The Royal Academy 
26 June Dad's Army 
31 July Hampton Court Palace  

From this date details are in the blog, no new pages have been added to this site.
16 August Captain Cook's Voyages 
30 August The Old Vic 
12 September Post and Go: Postal Heritage Mail by Bike 
13 September Centenary of the First World War 
10 October United for Wildlife Commemorative Sheet 
 16 October Harry Potter
1 November Christmas
14 November 70th Birthday of the Prince of Wales
15 November Lunar New Year of the Pig Generic Smilers Sheet
Lighthouse stamp. Postal museum permanent postmark.

Great Britain Special Pictorial Postmarks not associated with new stamp issues

Royal Mail's Postmark Bulletins are now available for free download

Permanent special and pictorial postmarks
15 September 2018

Other special postmarks
Final update 8 January 2018


ARTICLES

Smartstamps launched - 15 January 2004

1st class Smartstamp in EnglishRoyal Mail launched the 'Smartstamp' - a stamp which can be printed from personal computers in homes and businesses throughout the country. Read more about the system and see examples here.


Fee-free online postage launched 19 September 2006

Royal Mail launched a new online postage facility today which, unlike Smartstamps, has no monthly or annual facility fee and, unlike Smartstamps, is not restricted to people who use Internet Explorer as their browser.
The 'stamp' impression is the same as for the latest Smartstamps version. Behind the address the service is printed in microprint. You can see a sample cover here - click Back to get back to this page.

In October 2015 Royal Mail announced that the Smartstamps system would be closed from 31 December 2015.  See discussion on the blog, by system users.

In August 2017, the closure of Online Postage was announced for March 2018.

Christmas postal delivery by Scouts

1982 Sheffield Scout Stamp showing BPAlthough Royal Mail had a monopoly on the delivery of mail, since 1981 charity groups, principally Scouts, Guides and Church Groups have been permitted to arrange the collection and distribution of greetings cards each year for a limited period before Christmas.
See a selection of Scout Christmas Post Stamps here.

Special Delivery postage paid labelRoyal Mail Postage Labels

Click here to read more about this new phase of modern postal history. Updated 22 September 2003 with labels in new typeface and layout.  

In 2009, labels with the Machin head were used for Special Delivery items at just one post office in London. See Machin Horizon Label page. (In need of updating - see blog meanwhile.)

News about Great Britain new stamps will be announced on
 our blog, on the Delphi Stamp Collecting Forum, and on Stampboards forum.

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This site started 1998; latest update 7  February 2025

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