Dear LPG, 

I often read articles that I find on the LPG website and every now and then I find one that gets me doing a bit more research.  I recently read this one about all the changes that are about to happened to the humble postage stamp (►►►) which was very informative and had the desired effect because I did find myself digging through my drawers in search of those sticky backed pieces of paper.  I have to say that I have even found the odd one that still needs licking, and I am sure that I have more hidden somewhere around my home. 

But back to the point.  Why the need for the right-hand dotted panel?  In my head, stamps were always going to be something that would never need to touch the world of IT but, if I was ever going to be truly realistic, why should snail mail be exempt?   It got me wondering why we need computer codes on letters anyway.  

One has to admit that the dots do look a bit like the QR codes that have been popping up all over the place since 2010.  You might think that I have nothing better to do but, in the name of personal exploration, the first thing I did was a bit of practical research.  I tried to get my phone to read a couple of the right hand-dotted panels with my QR code reader app and guess what… they can be read that way.  The result was a lot of numbers, but the readings are unique for each stamp.  

But that is not the real answer.  Those of us who have smart phones, with the help of the Royal Mail App, are going to be able to add little messages which can be accessed by the people we send our letters to at some point in the future.  But considering that such messages will be stuck on the front of the envelope, they would be a bit public.   Apparently we will also be able to track our letters, much like we do parcels, but that is all to come.

The thing that is important at the moment is the fact that our beloved old-style stamps will become obsolete at the end of January 2023 which all seems like ages away but will arrive all too soon.  I used to stock up pre budget 1st class stamps but, it does not affect only those ones. Apparently all stamps, barring Christmas stamps and special edition stamps, will also be affected and become out-of-date.  But there is one bit of good news. 

There is a Royal Mail ‘Swap out Stamp scheme’ so that we can exchange our old everyday postage stamps now, and for a while, but I could not find any information on how long after January 2023 this option will still be available. So can I repeat what TG said and suggest that, unless you are keeping a few because the old ones are bound to go up in value in a few years’ time, don’t restrict your postage priority dispatch choices to the stamps showing ‘class’.  They have all got to go… 

CO, Ladywell.  

CO shares what she had found out about the dots…

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… and a little about swapping the old for the new… 

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