benaj
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Post by benaj on Jan 3, 2023 18:35:38 GMT
I still have one left out of the bucket of 12 bought about 6 years ago. I've recently bought 12 more - they'll probably last until the end of this decade. The stamps will probably last, but RM are turning the “old stamps” on the market “useless” if they are not exchanged on time. www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stampsOne article reported a woman exchanged 500 2nd class for just 11 in return 🤬
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Jan 3, 2023 19:35:01 GMT
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mrk
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Post by mrk on Jan 3, 2023 21:20:10 GMT
The stamps will probably last, but RM are turning the “old stamps” on the market “useless” if they are not exchanged on time. www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stampsOne article reported a woman exchanged 500 2nd class for just 11 in return 🤬 That deadline has apparently been extended to the summer (although RM aren't keen on shouting about it) The deadline is still 31 January 2023, but there is a 6 month grace period after that. So it's not really a deadline.
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keitha
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2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
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Post by keitha on Jan 3, 2023 21:48:48 GMT
[The deadline is still 31 January 2023, but there is a 6 month grace period after that. So it's not really a deadline. lol so as long as you post by 31 January it might get delivered
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Jan 3, 2023 22:21:21 GMT
I've looked on the internet and still don't understand why we need bar codes on stamps. Technology just for the sake of it?
Reminds me of a recent holiday to SE Asia. Normally you get a copy of the menu for room service and the main restaurant in your room. Now you get a QR code stuck on the wall and when you scan it the menu comes up on your phone. Even with my glasses I'm struggling to make any sense of it, so went down stairs to the restaurant and asked for a hard copy.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Jan 4, 2023 8:20:50 GMT
I've looked on the internet and still don't understand why we need bar codes on stamps. Technology just for the sake of it?
Reminds me of a recent holiday to SE Asia. Normally you get a copy of the menu for room service and the main restaurant in your room. Now you get a QR code stuck on the wall and when you scan it the menu comes up on your phone. Even with my glasses I'm struggling to make any sense of it, so went down stairs to the restaurant and asked for a hard copy.
The new stamps are apparently uniquely identified in the QR code (will make stamp collecting interesting), currently there is a market on ebay, etc, in unfranked or possibly very lightly franked stamps that can be re-used as new, it puts these dealers out of business. And apparently you will be able to add links or messages to the QR codes, no idea how or why you would want to.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jan 4, 2023 8:35:12 GMT
Reminds me of a recent holiday to SE Asia. Normally you get a copy of the menu for room service and the main restaurant in your room. Now you get a QR code stuck on the wall and when you scan it the menu comes up on your phone. Even with my glasses I'm struggling to make any sense of it, so went down stairs to the restaurant and asked for a hard copy.
I first came across that in a pub in Bath during one of the lockdown pauses. They didn't have paper menus. We ate elsewhere.
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Post by moonraker on Jan 4, 2023 9:31:07 GMT
Commemorative stamps, including those for Christmas, will continue without barcode tags, but I gather that if, after July 31, one were to add old, non-coded definitives this would still include a penalty.
I have a motley collection of recent booklets, old commemoratives and even older definitive stamps, such as 3½d and 8½d. The halfpennies don't count, so one can't count two of them as 1d. Some of the stamps have no modern equivalent, so can't be exchanged, but with the period of "grace" I should be able to use them up in time.
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Jan 4, 2023 9:57:25 GMT
The re-use of unfranked or washed stamps is one thing (that has been around for decades and decades), but manufacture of counterfeit stamps is likely to be the issue RM wants to tackle primarily. They are sold often in 12-stamp books and look just like real stamps, and apparently they're not detectable at scale by any automated means. This is the reason you cannot swap non-coded stamps there-and-then at the post office; you could easily swap counterfeit for real unless the person behind the counter was expertly inspecting every stamp.
There are plenty of cases online where people claim they have unwittingly bought fakes, either at a newsagent or even larger multinational chains - one suspects it is something that has grown substantially over the last decade with very-likely made in China operations specialising in stamps for international customers.
How well the new barcodes work to prevent this is probably not something that will ever be known by Joe Bloggs, but there are plenty of counterfeit stamps with barcodes on sale already. Either they are using real barcodes and duplicating (in which case, beyond the first or maybe second use they should be identifiable) or they have cracked the algorithm that generates the unique barcodes and prints new unique stamps that pass the check. If there's enough money involved the latter will almost certainly happen eventually (if it hasn't already), either by skill or buying the right knowledge from someone inside.
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Post by df on Jan 4, 2023 16:40:01 GMT
I still have one left out of the bucket of 12 bought about 6 years ago. I've recently bought 12 more - they'll probably last until the end of this decade. The stamps will probably last, but RM are turning the “old stamps” on the market “useless” if they are not exchanged on time. www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stampsOne article reported a woman exchanged 500 2nd class for just 11 in return 🤬 I've used my last one recently sending the application form to Monmouthshire BS
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keitha
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2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
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Post by keitha on Jan 5, 2023 11:23:40 GMT
The stamps will probably last, but RM are turning the “old stamps” on the market “useless” if they are not exchanged on time. www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stampsOne article reported a woman exchanged 500 2nd class for just 11 in return 🤬 I've used my last one recently sending the application form to Monmouthshire BS lol I just walk up the road to the local Branch ...
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mrk
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Post by mrk on Jan 5, 2023 12:06:30 GMT
If special stamps are still valid even without bar codes, why can I not exchange my old stamps for some Iron Maiden ones?
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jan 18, 2023 14:32:36 GMT
Got my swapped stamps from RM. 😌
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rscal
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Post by rscal on Jan 23, 2023 10:32:15 GMT
'Prin Tin Flation' ?
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