XANTHE'S
STAMP MAGAZINE

During my time in Glasgow watching the Commonwealth games a lot of new stamps were issued so I'm catching up with them now, including this one from Royal Mail. I've been quite positive about recent Royal Mail issues but I'm not so sure about this one. In focusing on military jet aircraft Royal Mail is going over old ground. There have been so many stamps showing fighter aircraft and we have already had the Concorde issue this year. Some of the previous Royal Mail issues on a

The next issue from Royal Mail will be released on 9th July. Normally Xanthe reviews all the Royal Mail stamps but I am doing this one as the theme is moths. I love moths and I know quite a lot about them. Moths haven;t appeared on British stamps very often although an elephant hawk-moth appeared in the Brilliant Bugs set of 2020. And there was also this one, which was in the 2008 Insects set. This is the first set that Royal Mail has totally dedicated to moths. We have ha

Royal Mail's latest stamps show waterfalls. This is a completely new theme for Royal Mail! Never before has there been a set dedicated to waterfalls, although waterfalls have occasionally appeared on stamps like this one in the 2019 forests issue. There are ten stamps in the set and they show: Second Class - Rogie Falls, Scottish Highlands Second Class - Pollnagollum Cave, County Fermanagh Second Class - Aysgarth Falls, North Yorkshire Second Class - Pistyll Rhaeadr, Powys

It's been four weeks since Royal Mail's last stamps (100 Years since the Birth of Queen Elizabeth II) so surely there must be another issue soon? Of course there will be - from Thursday you will be able to buy this set of castles from your local post office. Actually, you probably won't, but you get the point. When I read the Royal Mail stamp calendar for 2026 I wasn't too excited about castles. That isn't because I'm not interested in castles because I really am and I have

On 21st April 1926, a baby was born. Her parents were the Duke and Duchess of York. No-one at the time expected that the Duke of York would become king, and definitely wouldn't have imagined that the baby would become the longest-reigning queen in world history. Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022 and there were several stamps issued to celebrate her life and reign. Not surprisingly, there will also be stamps to mark what would have been her 100th birthday on Tuesday. A

A few weeks ago, I wrote this letter to Royal Mail . I am pleased to say that Royal Mail have replied, so I am sharing the response here. Firstly, I'd like to thank Royal Mail for taking the time to respond. Secondly, I think there is some useful information within this letter especially about the history of commemorative stamps, timescales, the role of the Stamp Advisory Committee and the fact that you can send suggestions to the Stamp Programme manager. I knew some of this

Royal Mail issued 16 sets in 2025; a year pack would put you back £275.00 As regular readers will see, my reviews of Royal Mail stamps often don't score very highly. And of course there are reasons for that - Royal Mail's recent stamps simply aren't as good as stamps that are being issued by other postal administrations. I'm not saying that Jersey Post, Isle of Man Stamps, La Poste or Posti get everything right but I always look forward to their next issues because I know the

Royal Mail's fifth issue of the year will be released on 20th March and celebrates The Lord of the Rings . It's 25 years since the first LOTR film, The Fellowship of the Ring , hit UK cinemas. I believe that, at the time, this was a sensational film that exceeded many people's expectations. It took the fantasy adventures from JRR Tolkien's famous novel and turned it into a gripping film, with believable battle scenes and probably the first realistic digitally-created charact

The next issue for Royal Mail is Monopoly and will be released on 16th October. This is to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the board...

Royal Mail's next issue, due to be released in Thursday, depicts British ducks. A GB issue dedicated to ducks is long overdue. While...