Price of stamps to go up this month

• Price of both local and UK stamps set to rise on 24 April.
• Jersey Post responsible for a number of world firsts, detailed below.
• How often do you post letters? Take part in our poll.
• Could you name the world’s first stamp? Find out more about it below.

THE cost of sending a letter is to increase later this month.

Stamp prices for local and UK letters weighing up to 100g will increase by 1p, while European and international letters will cost 2p and 3p more respectively.

• Jersey Post has issued its own stamps since becoming an independent postal administration operator in 1969.
• Over the years Jersey Post has produced stamps on a wide range of topics including the Island’s heritage, special anniversaries, traditions, flora and fauna and Jersey’s links to celebrated figures and world events.
• The Philatelic Bureau is always looking for topical issues to base stamps on and recent local subjects which had worldwide appeal have included the Titanic, The Grand National winner Corbiere, Formula One World Champion Nigel Mansell and Military Vehicles.
• Man of Steel, issued in 2013, was inspired by Jerseyman Henry Cavill’s role as Superman in the blockbuster movie Man of Steel. Each stamp in the issue features a different print technique to echo the Man of Steel’s super powers.

Tim Brown, chief executive at Jersey Post, said: ‘We understand that price increases have an impact for our customers but hope they will appreciate the reasons for the changes and recognise that we have tried to keep any increase as small as possible.

‘We passionately believe that the services provided by Jersey Post represent great value for money, and that these new prices should have a minimal impact on most Islanders – the average household spends just £1 a week on postal services.

‘In addition, we will continue to look at ways in which we can support the community, for example by offering discounts on key stamp prices at Christmas, as well as providing tiered discounts for more frequent users

of the postage system.’

The changes, which will come into effect on Thursday 24 April, mean that sending a letter to a Jersey address will now cost 47p and mailing to the UK or Channel Islands will cost 57p. Full details of the price changes can be found here.

2000 – The first stamp in Europe to be issued using 24 carat gold (the previous £10 Definitive stamp)

2002 – The first stamp in the world to be issued using 24 carat gold, 9 carat gold and 99.99% silver (the £3 Golden Jubilee stamp)

2012 – The first stamp in the world to be issued incorporating a real diamond (Souvenir Miniature Sheet commemorating The Queen’s Accession)

2012 – The first stamp in the world to feature a holographic portrait of the Queen (the current £10 Definitive stamp)

2015 – The world’s first-ever embossed holographic stamp. Featuring the Island’s crest, Jersey Post’s pioneering new £5 stamp has three holographic effects and changes colour when viewed from different angles.

• The Penny Black was the world’s first postage stamp.

• Before it existed, mail was paid for by the receiver.
• The Penny Black was issued in 1840, as a pre-pay method, considered much more convenient for those involved in running a large empire.
• And at that time there was no Suez Canal. It took six months to sail to India from Britain and to receive a reply to a letter could take more than a year.
• But by 1840 the Penny Black began to change all that. A steamship would carry the mail to Alexandria, it would be taken down the Nile to Cairo, then overland by wagon to the Sea of Suez, where it would be loaded onto another steamship to India.
• The whole trip could be done in two months.
• The faster post became so popular that in the first year alone, 160 million letters were sent using Penny Blacks.
• The Penny Black remains one the most coveted and most traded stamps there is.

Jersey is no stranger to holographic firsts – in 2004, Jersey Heritage commissioned a holographic portrait of the Queen, entitled Equanamity, to mark the 800th anniversary of Jersey’s relationship with the British Crown.

In 2012, to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Jersey Post decided to use the portrait on a new commemorative stamp. The £10 Definitive stamp, which is still in use, was the first stamp in the world to feature a holographic portrait of the Queen.

The portrait, by artist Chris Levine, was the product of two sittings with the monarch where more than 10,000 individual photographs were made using a tracking camera.

Jersey’s government gave a copy of a holographic portrait of the Queen to the National Portrait Gallery, where it currently hangs