Mail Art UK

Yes of course Michael or one of !0p and one of 5 or 15 stamps of 1p!  I am tempted!

To avoid giving the PO any more money than absolutely necessary I always buy enough to get them post free, which means at least £50 worth of stamps so I also tried to buy the necessary amount of £1,85. Guess what? this morning they were still unavailable. Maybe now they are but I am fed up. 

Sorry to hear that Martha.  there are discount stamp places 20% off all orders. I keep getting reminders on Facecrack!   Sounds too good to be true!

Oh, my, that is expensive postage for International Mail! About 2.22 Euro? It is 2Euro for a First Class Priority International here in Greece, but no way do I send my mail art "first class", ha! Happily 20 grams in an envelope can still go for 1Euro a broad, abroad :-)...though must agree it is very sloooow snail mail. Happy to learn that the Prince and the Queen will still be seen ..along with that code thing! 

Beware of discount stamps on Bookface or eBay. A lot of them are too good to be true, either used but uncancelled, or outright forgeries from a big country in the far east. This is the sort of thing which has led Royal Mail to introduce the dreaded barcodes. I'm careful to buy only old stamps with original gum; these are legal.

Thanks for the heads up Alan. Seemed like it was too good to be true.  Not been tempted.  I used to get bags of unfranked stamps from the Oxfam shop but sadly they closed a few years back. I didn't feel so bad knowing that some of the money was going to charity.

Do not worry about me, I would not fall for the Stamp scam. and I am not in Facebook. The post office it is, even if I have to sell the house.

Katerina, I suspect our postage is the most expensive in the world.

This is  disgusting because the British PO is racking in the lolly from their packets distribution.

By the way. Kevin my postman did apologize this morning! He agrees with me that the PO is trying to get rid of the letter side of the business and concentrate on packets.

Sorry to bring bad news but the situation here is nasty.

I am going to put a sticker on my envelopes in support of our postal workers.

For once I got to report a good experience, for me, with the Post Office. Years ago I bought loads of second class stamps and a few first class just in case. I had to exchange them now for the new barcoded ones. In total I sent 81 old stamps and got back 81 new ones, all of them first class, costing now 95 pence. I originally payed much less! It feels so good!

Lucky you!   About time the post office made ammends for all the price hikes!

I am not good at math but it was a good investment.

Assuridly so.  or to put it another way - upon the upturned sundial on the mantlepiece.    I keep my stamps in a little box just about  eye line in my workroom along with several badges, pins, old erasers and a chewed toffee.  I made that last bit up - I hate toffees!

Received from A1, my own envelope, reworked, and a sheet of stamps. Thank you Michael!

The Post Office is in a mess with depots chock-a-block with letters and parcels. that is what a neighbour who is a postman told me, he managed to get hold of our mail and brought it to us.
I do not know if the international mail is actually leaving the country. No information. Anybody knows?
I feel that I cannot post until this clears up. What does everybody think?
I have everything printed and ready. So annoying, but still I support the strike as postal workers have been offered the raise in salary they deserve in exchange for longer hours! It is a joke.

Martha - I'd post all your mail now if I were you - it can only get worse before Xmas!   I support the postal strike too ( and all the others ) -worrying times for all when the country is governed by idiots!

https://business.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5317/~/...

Martha - Thanks for the link - always a treat to scroll through masses of verbiage!  H aha!     Being dyslexic that ammount of wordage is just a blur to me!   I posted all my Xmas cards today - some to USA and a few to EU - fingers crossed!

Sorry, didnt know. it means we can post abroad. Home mail is delayed.

By the way, numbers get in a blurr for me! Dysnumxia?

IMPORTANT! from the PO. January 19 From today, customers sending letters to all international destinations can start sending mail into the Royal Mail network again.

Still getting Xmas cards and parcels delayed since December!  What is the Royal Mail Network?  Dont hold out much hope whilst these strikes are ongoing!

Yesterday I ordered International postage stamps from the Post office website. They arrived today and as I was busy Kevin my postman signed the packet for me! How is that for service?

At least the internal mail seems to be functioning!   Well done Kevin!

Hi all! Are you aware of the latest postal news? I was not until my husband told me.
The price of international postage is going up from Monday from £ 1.85 to £ 2.20! I had been checking since January the PO website did not say anything. Because it has not been revised since a year ago!!! And I did not notice, silly me!
More bad news; the Royal Mail, so called, maybe taken into administration with the consequent disruption or even death of mailing as we know it. It is a failing private business now, only interested in profit so it concentrates on profitable areas like parcel deliveries but still has an obligation to deliver letters to every address in the country. Hence the court action. They should do the same to our conservative (read fascist) government. They have run down the country to a shadow of what it was with their sick ideology: Take from the poor to give to the rich.

Martha - a sad state of affairs all round.  Seems like the death knell to me too.  Thank goodness for the internet although could go the same way - prices going up for broadband and other services.  Carrier pigeons anyone?

I have thought about carrier pigeons. There are a few nice tame ones that come to my garden. I will have a word with them. Will offer an increase in  peanuts.

The nearest we got once was sending a pigeon ( albeit a plastic decoy) through the mail to Hazel's Mom. We left his head emerging through the parcel so he "could breathe" - we didn't want the RSPCA  after us!  He arrived safe and sound with a coo from the postie who delivered him back in the 80's when sending anything seemed a cheap and cheerful affair!

That is so funny just what I need. Trying to buy International stamps on line as usual. No way! Only parcels! I do not know if to cry or tear my hear off. I shall do both to be on the safe side...

Does anyone recognize this Mail Artist living in London?

I hope to see you!

October seems ages yet although the weeks seem to rush by at an alarming rate!  Hopefully can get down to London at somepoint this year. Still a bit wary of going on trains full of sniffly sneezy folk!

I understand, and there is another covid mutation on the offing. If you do come to London please do contact me, I am 20 minutes from Victoria and from there I can get anywhere very quickly.

I would like to expand my UK list of friends, would anybody want to correspond with me? Please let me know soon, I have something to send before the end of the year.

Yes, you'd think out of the 92 UK mail artists listed here there would be one or two that would respond to such a request Martha. Sadly the majority seem to be mail artists in name only . Responses to my recent projects have been less that enthusiastic - well, hardly any to be brutally frank!  Its a sad state of affairs and not a patch on the heady days of the 80's and 90's when address listings would feature a dozen or so regular correspondents who were quite prolific.

 I will try targetting a few directly, see what happens.

Has Mail Art in the UK already died? I had no reply from my request for correspondents living in Britain!

I gear so - in the UK anyway. It's thriving in the rest of the world it seems. Mayb e they gave up on IUOMA and went elsewhere to dabble their toes?  As for my address - I'm still here in Cheshire. I tend to recycle envelopes and forget to cross out the previous addressee!  Eee by gum!

*I fear so!

Hi Jane - sorry to hear you had trouble navigating this website. I've had trouble with it in the past but mostly it seems OK for me at least. Good luck with the Lundy project. You must tell us about it - any pics?  A website?

Michael! My post went to somebody in Kent then! It has the senders address so it should come back to me. I shall redirected to Cheshire.

No probs. I expect it will be passed onto me - Kevin and James are good correspondents. Suprised you don't know them?  Kevin has been mail arting for 40 years at least. So he tells me!  I have no reason to doubt him.  Sorry for confusion.  Merry Xmas!

Thank you for your mail, Michael, and Hazel's! I do know Kevin and James, only that I do not memorize addresses so I did not recognize it. Oh, well, it is all in the family then.

Jolly Boxing Day to all!   Just a few shots of my workroom walls.  Top photo is wrong angle - needs turning 90 degrees.  Some of Hazel Jones' early works.

Warm greetings to all UK friends xxx

Thanks Katerina - same to you!