In response to public demand, Royal Mail is gearing up to continue to paint the UK gold with gold post boxes and to produce individual gold medal stamps for our Paralympians.
There has been a huge public outcry as to why the Olympics had individual gold medal stamps but the plan for the Paralympics was for a set of group stamps after the games.
Now in an about turn, Royal Mail has capitulated and will issue individual first class stamps for each ParalympicsGB individual or team gold medal winner. The stamps will be on sale in 518 dedicated Post Offices across the UK within five working days of each gold medal win and at a further 5,000 branches thereafter.
Andrew Hammond, Managing Director, Royal Mail Stamps said that “This is a huge logistical challenge and we will get the Gold Medal stamps for sale as quickly as possible to a network of Post Office branches around the country and certainly within five working days of a win” but brushed the difficulties under the carpet stating “We believe this is the right thing to do“.
The Gold Medal stamps will be presented for purchase as a sheet of two First Class stamps for £1.20. The sheet will carry additional information on the winning athlete or athletes. The stamps will also be available for purchase individually at Post Offices for 60p each.
This summer, around 4,200 athletes from 160 countries are expected to attend the 2012 Paralympic Games, with 471 medal events on the programme spread across 21 sports (There were only 302 gold medals won at the London 2012 Olympics). At the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games, ParalympicsGB won 42 gold medals, they’re aiming for over 50 at this year’s games.
Tim Hollingsworth, British Paralympic Association CEO thanked the Royal Mail for upping the ante from a set of six stamps with group gold medal Paralympic winners adding “We are delighted that the offer has been increased to enable individual stamps to celebrate our athletes’ achievements“.
Regular Order Customers of Special Stamps who purchased the full set of 29 Gold Medal stamps featuring TeamGB gold medal winners at the London 2012 Olympic Games will be offered the set of ParalympicGB Gold Medal stamps at a discounted rate.
We’ll make sure we bring you an image of every gold medal Paralympic stamp as it becomes available.
6 Responses
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RM, this was the correct things to do….
I would imagine it will be good for business…..
Clever move by the Royal Mail?
To have done this straight away might have provoked comments on the lines of over egged puddings (after all they are going to be selling a lot of stamps which will never be used) To issue them in response to “public demand” is a much better marketing strategy.
If there is such public demand for the Paralympics, why is the BBC not showing it, and ch4 fitting it into their schedule.?
Royal Mail – who cares whether they paint a few pillar boxes. I am slowly removing them from my business. They should focus on delivering mail instead of gaining cheap PR points. Tut
Good luck to those brave athletes in the paras.