News and press releases

Royal Mail is unveiling the process of how it is going to get its London 2012 Gold Medal stamps on sale the day after each Team GB gold medal win in over 500 Post Offices across the UK.

This journey – from gold medal winning moment to consumer – will see a team of over one hundred staff working against the clock to ensure the stamps are available for customers to buy within 24 hours.

The clock, literally, starts ticking once the Olympic Games’ Official Photographic Agency, Getty Images, submits a selection of the best Team GB gold medal winning moments captured by a member of their 100-plus squad of photographers and picture editors, to the eight strong Royal Mail stamp design team, based in London.

The team will have just an hour to review all the images sent, locate the most fitting and atmospheric image, crop and if necessary refine the photo, add the name of the winning athlete or athletes and the event and then position within a templated design.

The stamp design will feature, wherever possible, photographs of the Team GB athlete or team in action from their gold medal winning final. Where this is not possible, the image will be of the athlete’s gold medal winning journey taken from a heat or from their gold medal award moment on the podium.

Once the dynamic image has been chosen, Royal Mail’s design and production team will send a digital image of the Gold Medal stamp to six of specially designated printing facilities located across the country. These printers have been chosen to ensure speedy distribution of millions of Gold Medal stamps to thousands of staff at more than 500 Post Office branches by lunchtime the day after a gold medal win – on Sundays if necessary.

On stand-by, poised to collect the completed sheets, will be a fleet of almost one hundred Royal Mail vehicles ready to deliver them to the Post Offices.

An additional 4,700 post offices will receive the Gold Medal stamps within a week.

Each Team GB Gold Medal stamp will be published in a sheet of six First Class stamps. The border of each sheet will feature the name or names of the winning athlete or team, as well as the date of the medal win and the venue of the winning event. The border will also feature the emblem of Team GB and the title ‘London 2012 Olympic Games’.

The stamps and First day covers will also be available to buy the next day from www.royalmail.com/goldmedalstamps

Information on all Royal Mail special stamp launches and news is available on Twitter at: @RoyalMailNews and @RoyalMailStamps

For further information contact:
 

Simon Feldman
Royal Mail Press Office
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0HQ
Tel: 0207 449 8246
Mobile: 07435 769017
Email: simon.feldman@royalmail.com  

Notes to Editors

• Information on the Post Office branches selling 2012 Team GB Gold Medal stamps is available at www.postoffice.co.uk.
• To find your nearest branch selling 2012 Team GB Gold Medal stamps, select the branch finder option. Enter your postcode or town and select “Gold Medal Next Day Stamps or Gold Medal Weekly Stamps” from the service required drop-down menu.
• The Team GB Gold Medal stamps are presented for purchase as a sheet of six First Class stamps for £3.60. The sheet carries additional information on the winning athlete or athletes. The stamps can also be bought individually at Post Offices for the standard 60p First Class price.
• For information on Royal Mail’s range of Olympic and Paralympic stamps visit www.royalmail.com/goldmedalstamps
• For all the latest information on all Royal Mail special stamps launches and news, please follow us on Twitter: @RoyalMailNews and @RoyalMailStamps
• Royal Mail’s Gold Medal stamps will be the first time any host country has used action shots for Gold Medal stamps and issued them immediately, during the Games. It is the first time Royal Mail has ever issued next day stamps 
• Royal Mail will also be the first postal administration to commemorate the gold medals of its national Paralympic team by featuring them on a set of six special stamps. Each stamp will feature a different group of Paralympic gold medal winners
• Royal Mail has showcased all the sports disciplines that will be seen in this summer’s Games in three sets of stamps counting down to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
• Royal Mail issued its first Olympic Games stamps in 1948, with four stamps bearing the five Olympic Rings. No stamps were issued in 1908 as Royal Mail stamps at that time bore images of the reigning monarch only.
• At the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Team GB won 19 gold medals.
• Australia Post was the first postal service to issue gold medal stamps to mark home team Olympic victories in 2000, with Hellenic Post in Greece following suit in 2004.
• At the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, China Post issued a stamp product to mark each Chinese Gold Medal win. This was a sheet of stamps with labels attached, and an image of the winning athlete was printed on the labels. This was repeated for all Gold Medal wins.
• More recently, Canada Post issued a stamp featuring an image of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games gold medal. This was issued to mark the first time a Canadian had won an Olympic gold medal on home territory.