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Development of British Postage Printed on Site to 2011

Introduction

This one frame display depicts the development of postage printed by, or in front of, the customer and the machines used in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II up to 2011.

The story begins when Penny-in-the-Slot and meter franking machines were introduced in the early 20th century, but it was not until 1947 that machines were first installed at some Post Office counters nationwide that printed variable value adhesive labels for use with parcel mailing.

From the latter part of the 20th century there has been a steady increase in new machine types, either in long- or short-term use, or for a set trial period of as little as four days.

As these machines gained in sophistication, more postal services were provided resulting in lots of similar looking mail items. Invariably these differed only in the overprinted face value or other text, therefore examples of all service types are not included here.

Generally excluded are receipts from the machines, where issued, and traditional postage stamps that have been printed in their entirety by a Post Office print supplier and later vended from coin-operated equipment

Special emphasis has been placed on displaying behind-the-scenes material such as unadopted cliché designs, engineers' machine testing and setting labels, and un-overprinted base label stock.

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Frame 1

  1. Title Page
  2. Stamp Meters: A Continuing Success Story
  3. 1984 Frama: Postage Label Machines
  4. 1984 Frama: Postage Label Machines
  5. 1989 Pitney Bowes / GEC / Midland Bank MeritCard: Smart Postage Meter
  6. 2002 Fujitsu: Horizon Counter Automation
  7. 2002 Fujitsu: Horizon Counter Automation
  8. 2004/6 Lockheed Martin: SmartStamp and Online Postage Services
  9. 2004 Samkyung: Automated Postal Service Machines
  10. 2007 Pitney Bowes and Fujitsu: Post & Go Machines
  11. 2008 Wincor Nixdorf: Post & Go Machines
  12. 2008 Wincor Nixdorf: Post & Go Machines
  13. 2008 Wincor Nixdorf: Post & Go Machines
  14. 2008 Wincor Nixdorf: Post & Go Machines
  15. 2011 Hytech and Zebra: Postal Vision Post & Go Terminals and Printers
  16. What Might Have Been - Internal Trials and Demonstrations