Another Clutch of Gold Medal Olympic Stamps
It’s been yet another great day for Team GB Gold Medal celebrations at the London 2012 Olympics and again it’s all about pedaling and paddling and our elite athletes are keeping Royal Mail’s stamp team busy creating the new designs.
Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins Women’s Rowing Double Sculls
Kicking off today’s haul of golds were the ladies scoring in the Women’s Rowing Double Sculls final. Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins triumphed and the sixth gold medal stamp will be available to purchase by midday tomorrow, including Post Offices in Katherine’s hometown of Aberdeen and Anna’s hometown of Leek in Staffordshire.
It’s a double win for Katherine who intends to hold Steve Redgrave to his pre-race promise of arranging for her to meet David Beckham, who apparently agreed but only on condition she had a gold medal to show him.
Pillar boxes will also be painted gold in Aberdeen and Leek to mark the achievement.
Team GB Men’s Team Pursuit cycling
Next up in the first of two gold medal winning bike rides, the men’s cycling team of Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas, Peter Kennaugh and Steven Burke scored in the Team Pursuit.
The Team Pursuit Gold Medal stamps will be couriered across the country tonight to destinations including Ed’s home town of Huddersfield, Geraint’s home town of Cardiff and Steven’s hometown of Colne in Lancashire.
Huddersfield, Cardiff and Colne will also get gold pillar boxes. Peter Kennaugh comes from the Isle of Man which is outside the Royal Mail network but he won’t miss out on the honour – The Isle of Man Post Office will be making arrangements to paint a post box gold for their gold medal winning resident.
Victoria Pendleton Women’s Keirin
Victoria Pendleton flew around the track at the velodrome to clinch the third Olympic gold medal of the day. Coming from behind there was never much doubt who was going to take gold once the derny pace bike peeled off to release the riders for the sprint to the finish.
Watch out for Victoria again tomorrow on Saturday, due to retire at the age of 31 at the end of the London 2012 Olympics, she has set her sights on one more gold medal in the cycling sprint tomorrow.
You’ll be able to buy Victoria’s commemorative stamp in her home town of Stotfold, Bedfordshire as well as 500 other Post Offices from tomorrow. Royal Mail will also be dispatching the decorators to Stotfold to paint a pillar box gold.
megan says
1:25 am on 04/08/2012
Those are pretty cool stamps
Gerry007 says
9:06 pm on 04/08/2012
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If RM got it’s act together, why not a Silver & Bronze series for 2nd class.
And before I get comments about being 2nd class, it is still a highly desirable position to be in!!.
Chris says
10:57 pm on August 4th, 2012
Silver or indeed Bronze Medals are not to be considered “Second Class”. Just about the whole World is represented at the Olympics. To come First and Win the Gold in reality means that you are the very best in the World.
To Win Silver in reality means that out of the World Population of 7 Billion(or whatever) you are the Second Best in that Sport and of course to Win Bronze means that in reality you are number 3 out of 7 Billion.
That should not in anybodies book be considered as “Second Best”. Indeed those who did not Win a Medal(by far the majority of the athletes taking part will return home with nothing) can be proud of their achievement is just getting to the Olympics and achieving whatever they did.
However I would agree that there should be a series of Stamps or indeed coins to celebrate the other UK Athletes in whatever discipline who have won Silver or Bronze medals. At the end of the day the nation can be very proud of them.
Gerry007 says
11:13 pm on August 4th, 2012
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As I said in just one line above:
‘And before I get comments about being 2nd class, it is still a highly desirable position to be in!!’.
Chris says
7:28 am on August 5th, 2012
The only performers at the Olympics whose performance could possibly justify being called “Second Class” were those 8 who were disqualified for not trying who were trying to manipulate the results to give themselves an easier draw in the next round.
Even amongst the athletes beaten in the earlier rounds of competition there are numerous who have beaten their Lifetimes or Seasons Best Results or indeed who have beaten their National Records. Sometimes they have beaten these by a significant margin. Certainly no performance of this standard can be called “Second Class”.
There is a feeliong amongst some that the only position that counts is being First and Winning the Gold Medal. But remember in so many events the winning margin is a fraction of a second or only decided by a Photo Finish. In other words a blink of an eye between First and Second and some events have seen less than a second covering not just First and Second but several other finishers as well.
The standards generally have been astonishing and First Class from the vast majority of Athletes competing.
Chris says
11:24 pm on August 4th, 2012
Thinking about commemorative Coins. The Americans have a series of commemorative coins representing each and every one of the States in the United States. These were produced for collectors as well as for circulation. They proved to be very popular(in fact I have several in my own modest coin collection).
In this regard I was in Truro a while ago and an American Lady on Holiday took out her purse and managed to drop a US coin on the floor. Somebody pointed out that she had dropped a coin(a dime) and she was not going to pick it up(because of its low value).
Anyway as a Coin Collector I pointed out that even though it had a low value it was still a minor Work of Art in its own right. So she cleared out her purse of US coins and also picked up the coin on the floor and gave me the lot(only about 8 coins). She said she was happy to do this as they kept getting mixed up with her UK coins when she was trying to buy something.
In amongst these coins were a couple of the US State Commemoratives. So if the US can do it for the various States surely the Royal Mint can do it for the Silver and Bronze Medal Winners(suspending any Rules about No Living Person apart from the Queen on the coins at the same time-at least for those who have so well represented the UK at the Olympics).
Chris says
7:37 am on August 5th, 2012
I was reminded of the Commemorative set of 50p’s showing the Olympic Sports. I have seen a rack in WH Smiths with these on sale and of course on ebay. But I have only seen 1 such 50p in circulation. Has anybody else seen any in circulation?
Where the US set celebrating the US States wins is that it was also produced for circulation. So the US population could find them in their change. Little boys(and not so little boys) could look at them and perhaps go and look up the various States and learn what the designs represented and perhaps collect them.
I would hope that the Royal Mint will do a similar set perhaps of 50p’s and this time not just for the collectors but also for circulation.
Chris Dawson says
9:42 am on August 5th, 2012
I’ve had plenty of commemorative 50ps in my change. They’ve all gone into the pool table down the pub!
Chris says
2:06 pm on August 5th, 2012
I must adnmit that I asked around in such as Village Shops and the like and they all confirmed that they had seen few in circulation.
When I asked at the Post Office because they could be expected to order supplies of coins. But they explained that they received enough coins from the various small businesses that Banked with them and from their custometrs(both in the Post Office and Shop bits of the establishment) to meet their requirements for coins. So they rarely had to order supplies of coins.
Usually during the Summer we get a lot of coins appear in circulation in Cornwall that had not been around before. Mainly this is due to holidaymakers bringing them down with them. Out of season we seem to exist on relatively few New Coins except at places like Tesco which always seems to have shiny new coins in its tills.
So it could be that its just the way that New Coins are put into circulation. But I have only seen 1 commemorative Olympic 50p in circulation but I shall keep my eyes open for more.
Chris says
10:49 pm on 04/08/2012
Saturday 4th and the massive total of 6 Gold Medals. When the Golds first started coming in I wondered just how many the Post Office could cope with in a day. Well 6 must be getting towards the limit, or even exceeeding it. If so I would expect that those involved in designing and producing them must be very happy that tomorrow is a Sunday(and therefore no Post Offices open).
But of course there could be more Golds on Sunday.
Anyway hearty congratulations to each and every athlete, their trainers and of course families. All in all a totally magnificent achievement by all concerned.
Chris Dawson says
11:10 pm on August 4th, 2012
Actually at least 500 Post Offices will be open for three hours or more tomorrow (Sunday) and the stamps are being printed right now
Chris says
9:31 am on August 6th, 2012
I must admit that I did not expect there to be any Post Offices in Cornwall to be open on Sunday. After all there are only a handful of postboxes that get emptied on a Sunday in Cornwall and I do not know of any Post Offices that usually open on as Sunday.
But on the local News this morning it mentioned that some Post Offices in Cornwall had opened on Sunday and specifically mentioned in Penzance because they had sold out of Olympic Stamps last week and had more to sell.
So I apologise I was wrong we do have(at least on this occassion) Post Offices in Cornwall that open on a Sunday.
Gerry007 says
11:11 pm on August 4th, 2012
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With 47 medals in Beijing for teamGB, I would have thought it was obviously not enough.