Grayson Perry was the artist who drew the image on one of the First Class stamps that have been issued by Royal Mail on June 5th 2018, in the series 250 Years Royal Academy of Arts. The Royal Academy of Arts was established in 1768 by decree of King George III. The Royal Academy was originally housed at Pall Mall, but already after a few years moved to Old Burlington House, at that time a royal palace at the Strand, a street that is well-known by us philatelists.
Grayson Perry is an eccentric with a femal alter-ego, Claire. His works of art mainly consist of vases, but he also makes art by means of embroidering, drawing and painting, both on canvas and on objects. Often he himself is also appearing on his paintings, dressed like a woman, and often he also places a motorcycle in this works.

One of his more famous works is a fantasy-motorcyle in many colours, named "Patience", with which he reached the world press.

Now he thus also got the opportunity to design one of the stamps to celebrate the anniversary of the English school of arts, and also there we see Perry as girl and on the wall a painting of a chopper motorcycle.

The stamp has been printed connected to the second First Class stamp in the series that counts six stamps in total. First Class stamps are valid for letters up to 100 grams with guaranteed delivery the next working day, including the Saturday. On the moment of writing (October 2018) a 1st Class stamp costs 67 pence.

"Claire" with the stamp with motorcycle

The issue from Portugal Post (Correios) dated October 9th 2018 is the third in the series to celebrate 500 years of postal services. This one draws the attention because of a delivery vehicle that has recently been put into operation, the OVO F6S, that is depicted on the € 0.91 stamp.

It is a completely electrically driven three-wheeler that can be closed as a sphere, therefore its nickname "EGG" ("ovo" in Portugese). The egg is 100% free of emission (but how is the electricity made/generated?) and can ride 60 km on its fully charged lithium batteries.
The thingy is made in Portugal in São João da Madeira by UOU-Mobility and was already in June 2017 tested with good results in the city of Aveiro.

The FDC of the series (4 stamps) carries also an image of the egg in the postmark:

Thailand has treated us reasonably well during the last few years with their motorcycle stamps, and especially those with the Tuk-Tukkies. Now again I can announce a few nice Tukkies.

First about the block itself. Around the celebration of the Thai New Year the Songkran Festival is held. The new year is welcomed between April 13 and 15, and around this several festivities are held that have to do with washing and water. On the stamps we see the washing of the Buddha statue, sprinkling the parents hands with scented water, building of a Pagoda from clean sand and elephants that spray water over families with their trunk. A wet spectacle thus.

In principal everything must be cleaned before the new year, thus also the Tuk-Tuk must get a bath.

The Thai Post has issued this block to celebrate Songkran and at the same time used it as fundraiser. For the 4 stamps of 3 Baht 23 Baht had to be paid. I could not yet find out for which purpose.

Two weeks later the Thai post participated in the 30th Asian international stamp exhibition (April 24-28 2015) in the Taipei World Trade Centre. The logo of the exhibition was formed by the national symbol of Taiwan, the "Wu-Kuo" or the Taiwanese Tilapia, on Taiwan a loved and widely exported product, represented by the 3 fishes on the left.

The upper fish is an envelop, the middle should represent a letter and the lower one a cancelled stamp.

Asia Air also contributes a Tuk-Tuk with a set of free postcards for their passengers. On the cards interesting things to see in Thailand, and off course a visit to Thailand should contain a TT-ride. The set consists of 4 cards in a folder with imprinted stamps, thus postal stationery.

On two cards we see planes, not nice! On the two others a Tuk-Tuk. The image on the frontside is also printed in small format next to the stamp imprint.
On 3 sides of the stamp imprint a perforation has been made, which gives a nice twist to the cards.

An extraordinary stamp is the Post & Go label of Royal Mail. In the previous newsletter we could already see the newest issue in this field which is important for us. On September 12th this year (2018) the last six labels appeared in a row of five series of six labels each, with the theme post transport. This time with the theme "Mail by Bikes". The designer of the stamps is Andrew Davidson (not related to....). On three of the six labels is a motorcycle.

The bicycles that are shown are a Pentacycle (5 wheels), a tricycle with wicker basket and a ladies bike from 1948. Not very important for us.
The oldest motorcycle is a similar image as used on the stamp booklet from 1993: the motorcycle with trailer as used for parcel and mail delivery in the area around Sittingborn, Kent.

The stamp booklet from 1993

The motorcycle was taken in operation in 1902, and this makes it one of the first motorized vehicles used by Royal Mail outside London.

On the second label that is important for us, is an often used image of the motorized Royal Mail delivery-man from 1965.

This BSA Bantam appears on many cards and brochures. In the years 1948 to 1971 this motorcycle was used for both delivery and collection of post, but this image shows a telegram delivery-man on the way to his customer.

On the third motorcycle label, the sixth and last from this series, we see a Honda Quad that was used between 2001 and 2010 to deliver and collect post on the rough islands without roads in the Scottish area, Giga, Iona and Kerrera.

The labels could be bought from machines in the Post museum and at the Philatelic Service, in various values: 1st Class up to 100 gram (67p), 1st Large up to 100 gram (£1.01), Euro 20 gram/World 10 gram (£1.25), Europa 100 gram (£1.55), Worldwide 20 gram (£1.45) and Worldwide 100 gram (£2.25).
 
The first 6 digits of the code in the lower left corner indicate from which machine the labels have been bought.
 
Although there are several different first day postmarks for this P&G issue, I did not yet discover one with a motorcycle.

Hans de Kloet

Top   -   Back to former page   -   Home