Great Britain - 2002 Royal Mail Post Boxes

Great Britain - 2002

Royal Mail Post Boxes

 

The Second Class stamp, features a highly decorative box designed for use in London, Dublin and Edinburgh, in its original 1857 livery.

The colour shifts from green to red on the First Class stamp, an early mainland box of an 1856 design, shown in the red livery, which was adopted in 1874.

If it's blue, it must be 1932: that was when the airmail box was first introduced with dual notice plates. Special blue-painted boxes for airmail postings were in use between 1930 and 1938. The one featured on the E Class stamp is from 1934.

The 47p - 1939 stamp is an oval, dual-aperture (one for town, one for country correspondence) version of the 1879 cylindrical design painted in wartime livery of yellow gas-detecting paint on the roof and white paint at the base for greater visibility during blackouts

The 68p - stamp features the new-style cylindrical 'K' type pillar box designed by Tony Gibbs which was in use between 1980 and 2001.

 Royal Mail pays tribute to these outstanding icons with a stamp issue engraved by another legendary figure, Czeslaw Slania.

Gavin Macrae, Managing Director of Royal Mail Stamps & collectables said: 

"The pillar box represents Britain's first nationwide communication system and they have held a special place in the hearts of British people for 150 years.

"We always intended the issue to be printed in intaglio, the process used for stamps at that time, and the choice of engraver was arrived at just as quickly.

"Czeslaw Slania is the true master of his art and the level of detail he achieves on these stamps is incredible, especially given the stamps have to be engraved actual size - 30mm x 41m."