UK Issues High-tech Stamps
bgood writes: "According to this story on Excite@Home, the UK's Royal Mail has released a series of "interactive" stamps. Included in the series: A scratch-and-sniff stamp, a stamp with a hologram, and another that shows an electrically-charged particle when warmed by finger heat. The stamps commemorate 100 years of the Nobel Prize and Britain's achievements. The Royal Mail describes the stamps here."
Theres been a bit of a hoo-ha about the fact that the accompanying booklet has stuff about telepathy in it.
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http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,
From my limited knowledge of Royal Mail, these stamps, while valid for postage, wont be widely distributed.
Most people buy their stamps here in little books of between 4 and 10 stamps - these are almost always your standard orange/blue first/second class stamps.
I'll pop 'round to my local Post Office in a few minutes and specifically request some of these special issue stamps, and, with a fair degree of luck, they may have some in stock.
All countries produce special stamps that primarily intended for collection. Indeed, I believe some small pacific island states use stamps as a major source of revenue.
More interesting than Royal Mail producing some funky stamps is the claims that they're about to lay off up to 15,000 workers.
...j
My coworker has a framed wallmount of very expensive and specialized stamps commemorating NASA - some are round, some have holograms, embedded photographs, etc. Some of them are over $30 dollars. This a big money maker for the USPS because those are stamps that no one will ever use.