Palette & Tariff Change 2013

Definitive Colour palette Revision 2013

Issue date: 3 January 2013
New Tariff Applicable from: N/A

On 3 January the colour of the 1st Class Definitive stamp changed to the official ‘Royal Mail’ Red.This was part of a large revision of all the colours used for the UK Definitive stamp in 2013 that Royal Mail undertook.

The Royal Mail periodically revise the colours of the Definitives due to operational and technological changes in print,
although they have not done this for many years. Apparently, in the current colour palette certain colours produced similar readings when scanned in Mail Processing Centres and some colours also caused difficulties in reading the phosphor bars.

1st Class & 1st Class Large - colour change Royal Mail Red

50p - colour change Slate Grey

£1 - colour change Wood Brown

1p, 2p, 5p, 10p & 20p - no colour change but Royal Mail iridescent overprint added.

The 2nd class values remain unchanged.
The remaining stamps in the range will have new colours introduced at the next tariff change.

Country Definitives:

On the same day Royal Mail put on sale the England and Wales 1st & 2nd class country definitives printed by Cartor in lithography - replacing the De la Rue Security Print version printed in gravure. Although the new Scotland printings were issued with a specific day of issue and first day facilities - 27th June 2012, the England and Wales versions have been available at some Post Office branches since early autumn. This was a convenient time for Royal Mail to send them to collectors. There were no first day facilities and no first day postmarks as Royal Mail considered these as Philatelic Varieties and not new stamps.