Paralympic Gold Medal Post Boxes & Stamps
A lot of people have been asking if Royal Mail will be producing Gold Medal Stamps and painting pillar boxes gold to celebrate our Paralympians, when the London 2012 Paralympics Games start on the 29th of August.
We at Tamebay also couldn’t wait to hear how our Paralympians will be honoured. Now we can reveal that in a first for the Paralympic Games, all ParalympicsGB Gold Medallists will be honoured by Royal Mail with a post box painted gold in their home town.
Royal Mail will also feature every ParalympicsGB Gold Medal winner in the London 2012 Paralympic Games, to be included in a set of stamps available after the Games.
A donation of £200,000 has also been given which will be divided equally between Gold medallists.
Tim Cowen, Director of Consumer and Business Media Relations for Royal Mail Group, told Tamebay today “We’re honoured to be celebrating the achievements of ParalympicsGB. We will be doing more than any other postal administration in history to celebrate the Paralympic Games and Paralympic Athletes. For the first time ever, all Gold Medal winning Paralympic athletes will be asked to appear on Royal Mail’s Paralympics GB Gold Medal winners stamps. The special issue of 6 stamps, featuring groups of Gold Medal winning Paralympians, will be issued on the 27th of September 2012, in conjunction with the British Paralympic Association (BPA).”
On the 29th of August, Royal Mail will also become the first host-country postal administration to issue a set of stamps to celebrate the start of the Paralympic Games.
Ahead of London 2012, Royal Mail has released three Olympic and Paralympic Special Stamp issues. These feature 9 Paralympic events, including Wheelchair Tennis, Paralympic Sailing, Boccia, and Goalball. Of the four definitive stamps issued for the Games, two are Paralympic Games stamps.
Royal Mail have an excellent relationship with the British Paralympic Association and told us that they are honoured to be supporting the ParalympicsGB campaign in conjunction with the British Paralympic Association. They along with Tamebay hope the country unites behind our Paralympic team to make this the greatest ever Paralympic Games.
Royal Mail and the BPA agreed not to produce an individual stamp for each ParalympicsGB Gold medallist because the phenomenal success of the ParalympicsGB team makes this logistically impossible. They are hoping to better their tally of 42 Gold in Beijing – which could mean upwards of 10 Gold medals on some of the most successful days. Tim Cowen commented: “It is this phenomenal success which has driven our approach to the Paralympics series, which we hope will help Royal Mail join support celebrations for what we expect to be a very successful Games for ParalympicsGB.”
Ruth White says
1:31 am on 10/08/2012
When they are celebrating each individual winner of a gold for team GB, why are the paralympians being relegated to 6 stamps?
So much for equality!
Dom says
10:15 am on August 10th, 2012
Because few are really interested in the Paralympics but it is not very PC to say so.
Chris says
9:18 am on August 13th, 2012
I saw an interview with one of the organisers of the Paralympics. He said that so far they have sold 2 million tickets(he also said that there were still plenty left so do buy if you want to go). Obviously there are a lot of interested people. They cannot all be like the typical audience for a typical School Play where they are all parents or grandparents of the participants.
If each of the 2 million were to buy a set of stamps and put them away as a souvenir that would be a considerable sale and profit(sales of stamps where the Post Office did not have to provide a service because the stamps were not used to post a letter)
radroach says
2:51 pm on August 10th, 2012
I’m sure that Royal Mail would issue stamps if they thought that sales would justify it. As we must be aiming for 50+ golds this time, it would in any case require an unfeasible number of stamps to feature them all individually.
Gerry007 says
9:22 pm on 10/08/2012
.
Every collector BUYING A SHEET of 50 different stamp, sound justification to me….
radroach says
10:47 pm on August 10th, 2012
Doesn’t work like that. Royal Mail have actually been issuing miniature sheets of six identical stamps of the winner, on the day after a gold medal winning performance.
It’ll be interesting to see who turn out to the best sellers. I haven’t yet had any at all on incoming mail, I expect most will be kept as souvenirs.
Chris says
11:34 pm on August 11th, 2012
In todays Daily Mail is an advert from The Westminster Collection for a complete framed collection of Royal Mail Gold Medal Winner Stamps for £75 plus p & p of £5-99. They obviously are going to take apart the RM sets of 6 and mount them finished with Gold Foil. But what concerns me is that they are all going to be postmarked on the closing ceremony-12th August.
I am long out of date on Stamp Collecting but surely that means that they are technically Used and therefore of a lower value than the RM unused stamp sets of 6 that many have bought and put away. Yet surely £75 is very much a premium price. Perhaps one of our far more knowledgeable in regard to stamps would care to comment.
Before anybody thinks that I might be tempted to buy a framed set may I assure you that I long since ran out of wall space. And before anybody thinks that they are all Railway Prints may I assure you that about half are nautical subjects.
JD says
1:15 am on August 12th, 2012
Westminster Collection sell souvenirs, although some are ‘philatelic’ in nature, not generally to the philatelic market. Hence the advert in a non philatelic publication!
Yes at a premium price, they need a good profit.
The postmarking is a sales effort, the mint stamps are quite unlikely to be worth as much as the face value if you try to sell them at any point in the future.
Unless of course RM issues only a small number and someone ‘corners the market’.
And I don’t have a problem with quality railway prints!
Chris says
9:10 am on August 12th, 2012
I also don’t have a problem with quality Railway Prints. In my case I have been active in Railway Prerservation at various levels for over 40 years. In this regard there have been numerous often quite silly attacks on me for my interests. However I have enjoyed my involvement and I think that I have contributed something to the great and outstanding success of Railway Preservation in the UK. But I have still found myself being attacked for my interests. Sorry if my being interested in Steam Railways offends some others but I am far too old to change now(even if I wanted to).
Chris says
10:33 pm on 10/08/2012
If Team GB was to win 50 Golds in the Paralympics and there was to be a Gold Medal Winners stamp for each the Royal Mail will not lose by it. Remember the main purpose of a stamp is to be stuck on a letter and go through the post. So even if the numbers bought and put away as Souvenirs was lower for the Paralympics whatever was left would just be stuck on a letter. Its not as if there will be unsold stamps that are later scrapped.
I think that it is mean of the Royal Mail not to give the paralympics athletes exactly the same as they gave the able bodied athletes.
After all with the numbers of special stamps issued for the able bodied Olympics the Royal Mail has now had a great deal of practice. So they have got it down to a fine art. I thought that the numbers might overload the system but it appears as if it did not.
So Royal Mail reconsider and give the athletes in the Paralympics exactly the same as you gave the able bodied.
Ruth says
4:05 pm on 11/08/2012
The Royal Mail should treat all paralympian’s the same as other olympian’s. Some of our Paralympian’s who hopefully are taking part – Ellie Symmons,
David Weir and there’s Dame Tani Grey-Thompson, retired but very much still in the limelight
Ruth
JD says
1:21 am on August 12th, 2012
Mmmmm….
Royal Mail are taking a risk on this.
I am sure that they will get a kickback from the discrimination lobby. And quite right too.
Watch out for a possible U turn.
For collectors any change of mind could result in stamps from the Paralympics that are somewhat less hoarded than those from the Olympics!
Chris says
9:04 am on August 12th, 2012
By “Less Hoarded” I take it that you mean a lesser number are put away Unused as a Souvenir of the Paralympic Games. But surely that wioll mean that in future years the Unused Paralympic Stamps might be worth more than the Able Bodied Stamps?
That could be true although I wonder who actually puts these stampsd away.
Firstly of course the friends and relatives of the Winning Athlete; then of course the inhabitants of the town or city where the athlete comes from(see the great enthusiasm in Penzance which saw the Post Office sell out of the stamps for their local athlete in only a few hours); then of course there are Stamp Collectors; but a large number will be put away by ordinary Members of the Public who saw the Race and who decided to remember it by collecting a set of 6 stamps.
Surely added to the above for the Paralympics will be another group. They will be those who know the story of the Paralympic Athlete and respect them for having overcome all the difficulties they have had to overcome. Lets take an example. A Paralympic Athlete who has lost limbs in Iraq or Afganistan while serving the Nation in the Army or other Service. Who then has had to learn to walk again after perhaps being told by the Doctors that they will never walk again. There will be numerous such stories behind many of the Athletes competing at the Paralympic Games.
Yet the Royal Mail has decided not to commemorate the massive achievement of this Paralympic Athlete while they have Commemorated with an individual stamp for a Gold Medal in the Able Bodied Games where the effort while still massive perhaps was not quite so spectacular.
I call upon RM to think again and issue exactly the same Gold Stamps for each Paralympic Athl;ete Winning a Gold Medal as they have done for Able Bodied Athletes winning Gold.
thursdaynext says
11:23 am on 12/08/2012
Sorry, but in a year with crippling postal price increases this just seems like a mickey take.
Sure, stamps, no problem. Income stream, makes sense.
But gold post boxes and giving money away? Look, you either have to post a letter or you don’t.
I can’t imagine even one person thinking, ooh no- I won’t use a courier for this big parcel, I’ll use RM instead because they painted some postboxes a stupid colour.
It’s not going to happen, therefore it’s a waste of money, and a chance to act like a nation of idiots. Much like the rest of the various ‘pics.
Chris says
9:35 am on August 13th, 2012
Didn’t I see that some guy had been arrested for painting a Post Box Gold(without permission).
As I understand the case. He was unhappy that for this particular Gold Medal Winner the Post Office had painted a Post Box in another town. The box that the bloke painted was in the town where the Gold Medal Winner actually lives.
I suppose its a problem for the Post Office. Do you paint the Post Box where the Medal Winner was born, went to School, Trains, Lives etc. I suppose they have to pick one which might mean that the other towns feel left out. In extreme cases somebody gets out the gold paint to correct the situation.
I saw something about him being happy because ever since he had painted it people had been taking photos of it and with their children standing by it etc.
Anyway how much does it cost to paint(and no doubt a while later repaint it red again)a postbox? Let us say that it cost £100. This will no doubt be photographed and appear in the local and perhaps regional Newspapers and possibly be mentioned on Local Radio and TV. The equivalent of what we used to call “Column Inches”. The equivalent of a Free Advert for the Post Office.
Can it really be wrong because it raises a smile. It raises local pride. It commemorates a local persons achievement. Today now the Olympics is over we will be getting back to News that is generally all bad. Wars, Massacres, The disasterous Euro, The totally appalling EU, Cuts etc. All we have to look forward to is the Paralympics and the rest of the Cricket season and to then ruin the rest of the year the Football Season. No painting a few Post Boxes Gold has been an inexpensive way of raising a smile a bit like having a local Boris Johnson.
David says
7:40 pm on 14/08/2012
U-turn a-cometh…..