Welcome to Norvic Philatelics

.. the web's number 1 resource for up-to-date news about new stamps of Great Britain, as well as all the new postmarks, many of them pictorial and of interest to thematic or topical collectors.

The 2008 programme has stuttered to an end with the late addition of Smilers For Kids, and the third premium-priced Commemorative Sheet, for the 60th Birthday of Prince Charles. So far so good with the commemorative sheets, no new stamps have been used, but the Smilers For Kids produced three new stamps, not previously issued as smilers. Fortunately Royal Mail produced sheets which did not have the high premium that the packs had.

And so to 2009, with a programme which includes more 1st class stamps than previously - at least three blocks of 10 first class (Design Classics, Endangered Plants, Best of British and possibly the Olympic issue of which we know nothing at this stage). However, looking at the overall cost for the year February brings new definitives - not just the low value NVIs with security slits but also the high value stamps which are not even available at post offices - that's £138 for one of each stamp, booklet, business sheet, not counting the coils.

The best designs of the year so far must be the Industrial Revolution stamps, which combine several elements but maintain a common appearance for the set.

E-MAILing us: Most pages have clickable 'mailto' links which generate a subject line. If you write without using one of these links, please use the SUBJECT line in your mail to indicate which stamp issue you are writing about. Any message with a blank SUBJECT or with common spam subject lines, such as: hello, order, a question for you, hi, etc, will probably be rejected by our spam filter. Mail us from here or from our online shop (see below), and the message will get through.

COPYRIGHT These pages and all Norvic Philatelics FDCs are our copyright. These may not be used without our permission. All pictures of new stamps, presentation packs, prestige books and Royal Mail first day covers are copyrighted by Royal Mail and are reproduced here with their kind permission. Webmasters, publishers, students and schools may copy Royal Mail images from our site, but the use of these images must be cleared with Royal Mail Intellectual Property office by clicking on this link. We may be also able to provide higher-resolution images; if not Royal Mail may provide them.
Please do not 'hotlink' to our images; if you want to use them, copy them (right click) and host them on your own space. Thank you!

If you need anything for your collection which isn't shown here - please ask, we may have it. Our new online store has stamps, fdcs, postal stationery, world postal history, and picture postcards: click here to see all our limited edition Great Britain first day covers from 2003 to 2008.

Payment. We prefer cheques from UK customers or you can pay by internet bank transfer or over the counter to our bank account.
These are other methods that we know of: Canada pay by Canadian Postal Money Order in pounds sterling; Eurozone countries: payment by bank transfer is possible.
International Money Orders and cheques/checks are also accepted; cash in US$/GBP/€uro at the sender's risk. Credit card payments are accepted via PayPal only: if you don't have a PayPal account we can send you an e-invoice. Postage and packing is extra.

Our other site is devoted to the stamps and postal history of the countries of the Former Soviet Union in the 1990s. This is a fascinating area of modern postal history and we hope to find time away from GB new issues to develop this site to show material from Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Lithuania etc, as well as Belarus which is already shown. Please visit www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/3337

WANTED!
1994 Postage Due/To Pay stamps

For a personal collection we are interested in buying examples of the 1994 issue 'To Pay' stamps properly used, preferably on cover or parcel piece.
The values issued are 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 25p, £1, £1.20 & £5, all in the same design.
Please email.

External links
The information on external sites is the responsibility of the respective site owners. We review these links periodically to ensure that they are still valid and apologise for any 'broken' links that there may be. If you find any links which are broken or which are no longer relevant, please email Broken link and we will investigate and make corrections where we can. Many thanks.

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SITE MAP

Click here for links to our online shop, listing stamps, first day covers, postal history, and postcards

Join us at the where you can take part in discussions on a wide-range of philatelic subjects, learn from the expertise of others, and maybe help somebody new.
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(The VSC message board is hosted by Delphi and the first page you see may be a full-screen advertisement. It is possible to skip this without entering any personal information.)

Update 1 July: pictures and details of the Eminent Britons (8 October) issue, and the Moonlanding (21 July) and Big Ben (18 September) Commemorative Sheets, and the Thaipex (3 August) and Italia2009 (21 October) Stamp Expo Smilers Sheets have been added today.  The Design Classics booklet page has been totally rewritten to incorporate all four booklets.

Update 28 June - Surprise new gold Machin head Horizon label!

Details and pictures of the First Day of Use cover, and a later cover, now on our second Horizon page.

Update 17 April
The Machin definitives with security features have hidden codes which identify whether they come from booklets or business sheets. See our blog for more details.

The 2010 programme is on our blog here.

Update 2 February
Because it is easier and quicker, some news will be posted first to our new Norvic Blog which you can find here.  

Update 15 October
Now that the actuals are available we have updated the Post and Go system page, with news about these new Machin head phosphor-banded labels.

Errors Update

Charles Darwin PSB stamp book error.  Two days after the date of issue and we have the first report of a duplicated pane error in the Charles Darwin PSB - see this here.

RAF & Regionals prestige stamp book errors! During last summer a number Machin Anniversary PSBs were found with duplicated panes. Today we can report the Regionals Anniversary PSB with a duplicated pane 1 - see this and any others on this book here.

See also the pictures of Machin PSB errors here. 

No added pages errors were reported (as far as we know) from the James Bond prestige stamp book but Stanley Gibbons advertised a booklet with phosphor missing from Pane 3 (thank you B of Winchester!)   The British Army Uniforms PSB has been reported with a duplicate back cover.  We can also report that the RAF Uniforms PSB has been found with a number of missing or duplicated page errors. The best we have seen is missing the last two panes of stamps with the intervening page of text also missing!

Just last month a copy of the 2001 Submarines PSB was reported to us which had pane 4 inverted, so miscut and incorrectly bound.  Amazingly this had been unnoticed in a dealer's stock for some time, but not since 2001!  Sadly he didn't photograph it.

We have also been shown the 2nd class Business Sheet (PIP) totally imperforate with matrix complete! (We do not have any of these for sale)

Army Uniforms  The joint Royal Mail/BFPO Army Uniforms FDC was paraded at Autumn Stampex 2208 in London - see the pictures here.

Announcements

Collectors of Spitzbergen, Norway, Scandinavia
see foot of page for new book.

STAMP FAIRS

Regular Norwich Stamp Fair Sundays 17 May, 19 July, 20 September, & 15 November 2009 Click here for details

The next Norfolk & Norwich Philatelic Society STAMP & POSTCARD FAIR is Saturday 8 August 2009 Details will be here.