Talk:Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain

2004 post
What are the rules regarding postage stamps copyright in the UK? Yann 16:32, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I believe it is 70 years after disuse, but the information is out there because I looked it up and knew for sure once! ixo (talk) 08:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually any stamp issued before privitisation is covered by Crown copyright which lasts 50 years. ww2censor (talk) 11:33, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Regional Issues - Isle of Man stamps
According to Isle of Man Post, Manx stamps have not been valid in the UK since 1973, nor are UK stamps valid in the Isle of Man. Should the references to the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands be removed from the section relating to regional issues? 45ossington (talk) 12:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

At the time that the IOM and Channel Island Regional stamps were issued they were valid for UK postage so I believe they should still be included.82.34.107.136 (talk) 17:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Reverts concerning the name of the country
Ww2censor has twice reverted edits I have made to the article regarding the name of the country. In the edit summary, Ww2censor has suggested I read WP:COMMONNAME. I have looked at this guideline and it appears that it agrees with and supports my edit: the common name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is "United Kingdom". I appreciate that the terms "Great Britain" and "Britain" are also commonly used to refer to the UK (as is "England"), however, this is an encyclopedia and should reflect accuracy as discussed in the COMMONNAME article in the section Descriptive names and the section Precision and disambiguation. The Naming conventions article also points to Use common sense in the introduction. It follows common sense that the article is about stamps of the UK and not merely of the island of Great Britain nor of England - both of which are common names for the UK, but inaccurate and imprecise.

To this end, I am going to make a provisional edit to the article in the hopes that Ww2censor can accept the logic of my edit before we can proceed with determining the correct course of action and possible renaming of the article itself. --94.4.252.57 (talk) 01:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately it appear that anonIP 94.4.252.57 does not have an understanding of naming in philately. Indeed you are correct that in common usage United Kingdom, when referring to the country is used, however in philately the term United Kingdom is seldom used, while Great Britain is the WP:COMMONNAME. Do you think that Stanley Gibbons, Robson Lowe, David Feldman, James A. Mackay, all publishers of philatelic books and catalogues over many years, are all wrong and you are correct? Check out the listing of published books at worldcat.org and you will find that searching for Great Britain stamps returns 2,517 while searching for United Kingdom stamps only gives 150 results. Do you suggest that the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain or Great Britain Collectors Club change its name. All over the philately Great Britain is the term not United Kingdom. Not one recipient of the Crawford Medal was given the award for a United Kingdom publication but five authors wrote about Great Britain stamps. Common sense is that we use the name commonly used by those who know the topic. You should also note that this article does not just cover the modern state of the UK but the constituent countries from its earliest days as encompassed by the term Great Britain. Sorry but you are wrong. ww2censor (talk) 04:11, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You ask if Gibbons, Rowe, Feldman and Mackay are all wrong and I am right. The answer is yes - they are wrong. That doesn't mean we can't refer to their source work by their titular names. However, when referring to the country the article pertains to, it is important that an encyclopaedia is correct and accurate - despite the mistakes made by experts.
 * The experts are such in the field of stamps - not in the field of political geography.
 * I am not suggesting any club or society change names. I probably would though, if given the opportunity - assuming the particular clubs an societies in question concern themselves with British stamps and not merely stamps from the island of Great Britain. However, that is not relevant to this article and the changes I have proposed.
 * As for your search results, a more simple Google search for the terms "United Kingdom stamps", "Great Britain stamps" and "British stamps" returns 185,000,000; 1,810,000 and 4,190,000 results respectively.
 * I'm sure we could formulate other search parameters which would produce different results, but it isn't particularly relevant. The only relevance it has is to the names of the organisations and publications that various authors and experts have used. But the fact remains that they are referring to the United Kingdom and not specifically confined to the island of Great Britain.
 * You should probably know that the this article does not just cover the modern state of the USA but the constituent territory from its earliest days such as the Thirteen Colonies. Postage stamps and postal history of Hungary covers the Austro-Hungarian Empire.. etc. So, to paraphrase you in summary, sorry - but you are wrong.
 * Having said that, I can see that you've made an attempt to clarify the territory (both modern and historical) concerned - which is, I believe, the important thing with regard to readers of the article who may not be familiar with the historical and modern territories and names used.
 * Your new introduction, I think, is unnecessarily complex and I will try to simplify it. I'm not sure we should begin necessarily with England (the old kingdom), but we should leave the article open to describe any history of the postage systems in - not only England - but also Wales, Ireland and Scotland. --94.4.252.57 (talk) 01:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Folks, while agree with the "United Kingdom" proponents that the philatelic authorities are indeed wrong, living as I do in Northern Ireland (which is, of course, not part of Great Britain) "Great Britain" does seem to be irrevocably ingrained in philatelists' heads, despite the fact that the Penny Black was very much issued in Dublin, Galway and Cork as it was in Finchely, Edinburgh and Cardiff. So while "United Kingdom" is by far the most accurate title - maybe a small section on nonemclature explaining *why* it's "Great Britain" in philatelic circles would be helpful?  In fact, does anyone know???  Cyberbeagle (talk) 14:54, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It has always surprised me that Gibbons et al chose Great Britain ahead of United Kingdom because, as you say, the original postage stamps were issued by a state which included the whole of Ireland at that time. See United Kingdom in which the key dates are 1800 and 1927.  The problem on this site is its rule about WP:Verification, of which the above-mentioned WP:COMMONNAME is a derivative.  If you or I were to write that the Penny Black is a United Kingdom stamp, someone would challenge it by saying that Gibbons verifies it as a Great Britain stamp.  It's a difficult one to resolve.  I think a wider discussion is necessary for a start.  Jack | talk page 20:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Post Boxes
There is no mention of the introduction of post boxes. I saw at the end of a BBC DVD that Anthony Trollope was responsible for their introduction, which happened at the same time as the introduction of the postage stamp. Prior to this all mail was collected from the sender's address by courier. ixo (talk) 08:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * We can always add it but first you may want to read Pillar box. However, it was 1852/53 when his recommendations were started. ww2censor (talk) 11:29, 8 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Really helpful thanks - for both your answers! perhaps there could be mention of pillar boxes with a link to the full article, as pillar boxes are part of the Postal History of Great Britain. I was hunting around for something about them and the Pillar Box article was not immediately obvious to me. ixo (talk) 17:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Horizon label
It's a modern development of postage in the UK, so should be part of the main article and is really not notable enough to have an article in its own right. ww2censor (talk) 13:39, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't agree. It has the potential to be a longer article. I easily found four webpages detailing the labels and there has been extensive coverage of these labels in the British philatelic press. In addition they are still in use and continue to evolve meaning that more will be written about them. I see this as analogous to the series article we have on Machins or Wildings. Can we give it some time and see if anyone expands it? I think they might. Philafrenzy (talk) 18:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm ok with giving it some time, let's say a month or so but maybe we can add a short section to the main article with a main link. However the philatelists reaction paragraph is uncited and likely OR, unless you know of some reliable sources. ww2censor (talk) 19:58, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I added a source. John Holman said in GSM "...many collectors hate them but they do have an interest of their own and a number of collectors are building up specialised collections of the many different types." That was in 2008. In my experience they have quite a following. Philafrenzy (talk) 20:19, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Harold Blumenthal and the 1991 Queen's Birthday stamp
It would appear that the image of a Mr Harold Blumenthal (who may have been a local councillor) was accidentally included on a stamp issued to celebrate the Queen's 65th birthday. I don't know enough about the affair to compose an article on it (let alone cite references), but is it not something that should be mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.239.123.184 (talk) 13:42, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Not sure if you are making a joke or not but certainly not worthy of an article in its own right and probably not worth a mention in this article either. Post additional info if you think there is more to it. Philafrenzy (talk) 13:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Apparently the issue concerns this Grenada Grenadines stamp with comments about Blumenthal on this one not a GB stamp per this 1991 New York Times article. There might be slight justification in an article on that stamp issuing territory but even then it is mere trivia. ww2censor (talk) 14:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Nice surprise for him but agreed trivia for us. Philafrenzy (talk) 14:38, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 19 February 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 17:32, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain → Postage stamps and postal history of the United Kingdom – Although some of the back history in the article deals with the period of time before the UK came to be, some of it deals with a time before Great Britain was an entity (ie. the Kingdom of England). Primarily, however, the country is now the United Kingdom: there are no articles entitled Postage stamps and postal history of the Thirteen Colonies or Postage stamps and postal history of North America or Postage stamps and postal history of the Continental Congress. 8.40.49.30 (talk) 02:46, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: The section above,, addresses this question. Station1 (talk) 08:30, 19 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose: per same reasoning as above. In philately Great Britain is the WP:COMMONNAME. The redlinks are just red herrings. ww2censor (talk) 11:21, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose In my experience collectors invariably talk about collecting "GB" and British stamps. It's probably technically wrong but is very strongly entrenched. I see no good reason to change it. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:50, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. Common usage of the term "United Kingdom" is infrequent in each of the four component nations (five if you count Yorkshire!) and this also applies in many fields on an official or semi-official basis. In philately and postage stamp issue, both of which originated in a country that was then officially called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the stamps have always been called British and Stanley Gibbons has always named the country of issue Great Britain. After all, we inhabitants of the so-called UK do not call ourselves Ukish or whatever. We are British or Irish and these are often sub-divided into English, Northern Irish, Scottish or Welsh (and Yorkshire). I've often found that Americans in particular just do not understand this. For example, how many sports teams are called UK? The UK national cricket team which plays Test cricket is called England but Irish, Scottish and Welsh players all play for it. In football, there isn't even a pretence of British as each of the four nations has its own association and fields its own team. Changing GB where it is the WP:COMMONNAME to UK would be plain wrong. Jack | talk page 14:29, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment Not really relevant but actually there are separate Irish and Scottish cricket teams. The English team is not the British team. AusLondonder (talk) 09:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Reply. It IS in Test cricket, which is why I specified "Test" cricket instead of merely saying "international". The Irish and Scottish teams do not play Test cricket, only limited overs, and many Irish and Scottish players have played for England and some have even captained England. Jack | talk page 20:16, 22 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Inaccuracy?
As of the date and timestamp of this paragraph, the article contains the text QUOTE:Once colonised countries of Great Britain at one point all used the Penny Black portrait of Queen Victoria, such as Barbados, Nevis, Fiji, Trinidad, British Guiana, and India.UNQUOTE I assume that "once colonised" is a typo for "once-colonized" (as otherwise it is redundant to "at one point") but I'm not writing about that. There is a phobia against hyphens lately. I'm writing because of the text "ALL used" (emphasis added by me). There is a once-colonised country that has never used the Penny Black postage-stamp. Google for the phrase "United States of America" (the name of that ex-colony) and you should find enough data to verify that it does exist.2603:7000:9906:A91C:1C64:8308:33BC:E2D6 (talk) 11:58, 26 June 2021 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson

Barcoded stamps
"In February 2022 new barcoded "definitive design" stamps were introduced. The rectangular (matrix) codes, unique to each stamp, use a trademarked coding designed to prevent counterfeiting and to enable tracking of letters, and to enable correspondents to link digital content to their stamps" Is there any evidence of either intention or efficacy in prevention of counterfeiting or tracking? S C Cheese (talk) 17:28, 21 January 2023 (UTC)