Great British Presentation Packs and Year Books Issued 1960 to Date
Yes, it does say from 1960 and not 1964 as many people think. This is because the first Post Office items of this nature were actually the 1960 Wildings and Regional Packs that are now termed as Forerunner Packs.
They along with 2 other slightly later packs were in the form of a sealed Envelope with a clear window. Two versions of each exist, one priced in GBP and the other in US$ for the American market.
The high value packs are very scarce and command very high prices, far more than the Forth Road Bridge Presentation pack of 1964.
The first pack in the format we know today of a set of stamps with an information card about the stamps, printer and designer in a plastic sleeve (originally these were cellophane, which as many people know, over the years of time have usually degraded to such an extent that the sleeve has shrunk and buckled the pack) was the 1964 Ordinary issue of Shakespeare. The format now is larger, but the general idea has not changed in over 40 years.
The Forth Road Bridge pack issued in the same year is generally regarded the pinnacle of everyones Commemorative Presentation Pack collection. Why is this? Simple really, it is the scarcest.
If you look at the quantities issued of the early packs, you will see that the first Shakespeare pack was very popular selling in excess of 108,000. Next was Geographical selling fewer than 30,000, next Botanical at just over 16,000 and then we have the FRB pack coming in at 11,450.
Now bear in mind that this was a boom time in stamp collecting, not because of a rise in value, but basically because nearly every kid and a great many adults in the country collected stamps. So, 11,450 is a tiny sales figure. I can only assume that the dwindling sales figures are down to a lot of people deciding that these packs were just a gimmick and did not want to pay the extra for them or maybe the Post Office just decided to issue less and once stocks had sold out, that was it. Who knows? Do you?
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© 2008 Mark Sargent Stamps |