Smilers sheet
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Smilers sheets are Britain's first personalised postage stamps issued by the Post Office to coincide with The Stamp Show 2000, Britain's International Stamp Exhibition held in May 2000 at Earls Court. Britain's first personalised postage stamps were however not a new concept. Personalised Stamp sheets (or P-Stamps) were first issued by Australia Post in the summer of 1999 in Australia.
The "Smilers" A4 sized stamp sheets contained ten se-tenant "smiles" stamps with a generic label design. Personalised versions of these stamp sheets were made available to the public at special photo-booths throughout the 2000 Stamp Show held in London. The cost for a single sheet of ten stamps and personalised photo labels was £5.95 (£10.00 for two sheets – equivalent to a premium of £4.80 on the cost of twenty stamps). The current cost (as at March 2008) is £13.50 per single sheet of twenty first-class stamps or £12.50 for two or more sheets (a premium of £6.70 over face value).
This service proved quite popular to visitors attending the show, arguably due to its novelty value, but later attempts to continue the Smilers sheet format with later stamp designs was initially not so popular. This can be attributed to the novelty value having worn off and the premium charged above face value. As a result, the subsequent four or five smilers sheet issues are now scarce.
As an alternative to the personalised version, using a photo or image provided by the purchaser, Royal Mail also produce sheets with pre-designed 'generic' labels at a much lower premium.
[edit] Stamp details
The stamp designs are taken from the 1990 Greetings booklet stamps.
- Issue date: 22 May 2000
- Stamp design: Greetings “Smiles”
- Quantity: 10 × 1st NVI
- Sheet design: The Post Office
- Printed by: House of Questa
- Printing method: Photogravure
- Perforations: 15 x 14
