New Issue: Winnie the Pooh (GB)

The next issue from Royal Mail issue will be released on 14th October and feature Winnie the Pooh.

All of us will know about Winnie the Pooh and his friends Eeyore, Piglet, Owl, Tigger and Christopher Robin. This year marks the centenary of the publication of A.A. Milne's book, Winnie the Pooh, which 100 years later is as popular as ever.

I received a card from Royal Mail yesterday, which tells us that "this charming collection of special stamps celebrates the centenary of Winnie the Pooh with six stamps featuring E.H. Shepard's timeless illustrations*. Whether you grew up with Pooh or are discovering his adventures for the first time, this special issue celebrates a century of friendship, imagination and timeless storytelling." I have all the A.A. Milne books and my sister Heidi is learning Polish by reading the Polish version (Kubuś Puchatek). I have watched the Disney Pooh movies, which are OK but not as good as the books in my view. I have always liked Winnie the Pooh and I think the classic illustrations are brilliant and they have lots of charm and character, so I can see why they have been used here.

The only thing is that Royal Mail has already made some pretty great Winnie the Pooh stamps based on Shepard's illustrations, back in 2010.

Pooh also featured on this stamp in the 1979 Year of the Child issue.

The centenary seems like a reasonable reason for another issue, but it is really so different to the 2010 set?

Also, there is a real problem with this set. It is supposed to commemorate the publication of Winnie the Pooh, a book by A.A. Milne. So you would expect all the characters and the illustrations to come from that book, right? Well, no. Some of these illustrations are from the later book, The House at Pooh Corner (1928). I would have expected this set of stamps would include a picture of Rabbit, who was one of the most important characters in Winnie the Pooh. Instead we have Tigger, who didn't appear in it at all. This seems very lazy from Royal Mail and a pretty big mistake. It's like celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie with a picture of Jar-Jar Binks.

A tribute to the centenary of a book should focus on that book, not characters who appeared in sequels.

As you can imagine, Royal Mail have given a lot of thought to the commercial opportunities! Firstly, they have a miniature sheet, which feels more like Disney than E.H. Shepard.

There is also a prestige booklet, coin covers (including a gold one, available at the cheap price of £2,150) , fan sheets (whatever they are), a collector's sheet, gold stamps, a gold ingot, a press sheet and the usual presentation pack. All stuff deliberately made to be "collectible" and I am afraid not very interesting to me.

Design Quality: The design of the main set is based on E.H. Shepard's illustrations and I can't really fault that, even if it is very similar to the 2010 set. I actually like that colour has been added, but in the early editions of Winnie the Pooh they were all black and white line drawings and Shepard did not use colour in his drawings - that was added later. So if Royal Mail wanted to pay tribute to the original book, perhaps it would have been better without colour? I can see an argument either way, and I don't think it matters too much if they're colouring the original illustrations. However, the miniature sheet is more like the later Disney style and doesn't have the same quality or the same link to the 1926 book. 5/10 Theme and Subject Choice: As a tribute to the 1926 book, it's a perfectly good subject choice. But Royal Mail really should have stuck to that book, the characters in it and the illustrations from it. 6/10 Historical and Cultural Relevance: It's an important anniversary of an important book. it might not be classical literature but it has entertained generations of young people. I just wish Royal Mail had stuck to celebrating the anniversary rather than bringing in characters from later books and using Disney-style illustrations for the miniature sheet, which makes it look like they are less interested in celebrating history than making money from Pooh fans. 7/10 Innovation and Creativity: The original drawings were obviously very creative and have become world famous, although Royal Mail can't take much credit for that. The design itself is quite simple but adding "signatures" is a nice touch. 8/10 Collectability: Yes, these are very collectable and Royal Mail knows it... 9/10 Personal Appeal: I like Winnie the Pooh although I am not as interested in these as you might think. They just seem like a way of making money for Royal Mail, I suppose not unlike many other recent issues. The fact that Royal Mail doesn't seem to realise Tigger didn't appear in the original book tells me that're not really interested in history or the book itself, just creating nice souvenirs for fans. I would give 7/10 for the main set of stamps but I'm also including the miniature sheet in this review so the score is lower. 5/10 Overall Score: 40/60