There is also a Lunar Year of the Tiger sheet available to pre-order here:
Available from 8th December.
(Image credit: Royal Mail)
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Oh no, they are very ugly indeed! Hope that not all the future phq cards will feature barcodes.
I think they are trying to get us ready for the moment when all stamps, and so by extension all PHQ cards, have barcodes.
I guess it makes sense if you’re looking at it from a (strict?) collector’s point of view?
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But it kills the joy, and therefore, potentially, the trade, for those of us who want the picture only.
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Of course , I totally agree. I’m definitely not buying these ones.
Oh, and reading Norvic Philatelics blog… post offices are told to pen-cancel the picture part of a barcoded stamp…
Errr OK… Why??!
I’m going to at least get a single 1st Large & 2nd Large, I’ll ask my local work Post Office team about that.
I know from an earlier post elsewhere in the forum the barcodes cannot been seen though the black ink Postmarks (hence why Germany has Blue Ink now).
Going back to the PHQ cards, they could have easily omitted the barcodes from the designs, and just left you with the stamp pictures. 
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Anecdotal evidence here…I live on a rural route where the postie must get out of his van at every house. We chat often about the monthly stamp releases.
My postie (yesterday): "I’ve heard it from at least a dozen people already. Everybody hates them."
@AnjuschkaC , I think you’re right. Preparation for all stamps getting barcodes. 
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Yes okay so barcodes are here to stay. The German stamps have them now and (some) Postcrossers seem to be able to track their cards across Germany which sounds quite interesting. The codes are always black and the cancels are now blue. It works. But I wonder about the pen-cancel thing @FairyFoot referred to? Was that referring to making sure the pen cancel only covers the pictures, then maybe we can hope it carries on as before, and won’t happen too often. Or are postal workers told to make sure to cancel them all, possibly because they’re behind in switching the machinery that would preserve the barcodes and are (temporarily) stopping all machine cancellations wholesale? I know I’m overthinking this 
Apologies if this has been discussed recently.
I stumbled across a few unused aerogrammes (air letters). They are pre-franked “International/First Class”. Has anybody been able to send these lately without adding extra postage?
Many thanks! 
There’s a thread on money saving expert (or something like that) forum saying that they are no longer valid (2012). However, a thread on twitter seems to suggest still valid. https://twitter.com/royalmailhelp/status/1088844828690006018?lang=en
I suppose try at your own risk, but if you include a return address on the envelope…
Twitter seems to be a faster way to get answers out of Royal Mail.
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Thanks, @FairyFoot - I had to join Twiiter to get any answers out of ruddy SNCF…so you’re probably right! 
I’ll give it a go and report results. 
I have to agree, for the first time I can remember I’m not buying any Christmas stamps this year. They’re awful. 
For the last few months I have used the £1.45 international economy rate for sending out my mail to worldwide (outside Europe) destinations without any problems. Travel times were not noticeably longer, I believe flight cancellations due to Covid slowed down a lot of airmail anyway.
Now, a postcrosser from Hong Kong sent me this picture of a card I sent to her. It had a special cancellation which reads:
do not surcharge
correct postage raised
by revenue protection
treat as 1st class
Now it looks like I was underpaying. Slightly annoyed. If I accept possible longer travelling times, Royal Mail should accept international economy postage. After all, it is one of the options given when I use their ‘find a price’ tool.
Have any of you experienced this?
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Hmmm, seems HK is a No, No for the Economy rate,
All my £1.45 rate cards to North America. Arrive fine usually within a month, but to Asia, take nearly three months.
I usually write ‘International Economy’ on my postcard/evenlope when sending at this rate.
But never known a postcard and stamps to be flagged by revenue protection? Was it because you paid a penny over at £1.46 and the sorting machine had fit?
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My travelling times aren’t as bad. this card was the exception, being sent six weeks ago. I assume being pulled out of the stack and looked into took a while. Good thing is that the recipient is very happy about the special cancellation mark 
Writing ‘international economy’ on the card is good advice, thanks.
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It looks as it was hand dealt with, as the stamps where Intially pen-cancelled, I can see a faint ballpoint pen slash, they obviously had not dealt with many International Economy letters before.
I too would be interested in recieveing such postmark 
Six weeks to HK is good for IE, my last one to HK took 99 days *sigh
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Next time I send you a card, I will overpay by 1p, let’s hope they get confused again and give you that special stamp
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Does overpaying cause issues? I’ve overpaid by a penny quite a few times… 
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