Welcome To The (Franking) Machine: Pink Floyd’s Postage Stamps

What Could Be More Rock n Roll Than Stamp Collecting?

Well, there’s doing your tax return, tidying the garden, and writing a letter to Points of View, for a start. 

Yet ever since The Marvellettes sang “Please Mr Postman” surely rock and roll has been hand in white glove with… er, stamp collecting? 

Hmmm. No, that can’t be right. Stamp collecting isn’t exactly punk rock is it? 

I mean, what could be farther from, say, Record Collecting than an obsessive collector’s attention to detail, male dominated obsessing over hoarding rare items, and perusing over catalogues of prices of myriad versions of the same item?

Anyone?

Anyone?

However, unlike vinyl, the advent of email, SMS, WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook means postage stamp usage is plummeting. 

An anachronistic throwback to the way things were a generation or more ago? Perhaps, but that’s enough about Pink Floyd. 

Ah, Pink Floyd. Perhaps it is this lack of affinity with Punk, combined with an ageing population less enthralled with collecting old bits of sticky paper than it is with collecting old bits of hopefully less-sticky vinyl, that makes Pink Floyd an ideal choice of being only the second rock band to be honoured with their own full set of postage stamps in the UK. 

What better stamp to put on a postcard with the simple message: “Wish You Were Here…”

Yeah, except that one is priced at £1.52. They really didn’t think that one through….

You can also buy a set of ten 64p Dark Side of The Moon stamps for a bargain £12.95. 

Does the Royal Mail think we can’t do multiplication or something? Even a child can tell you that’s overpriced by £3.72.

The Beatles were the first band to feature on UK stamps, naturally way back in 2007: 

Released on 7th July, this Pink Floyd set mirrors in design a set that celebrated album covers released in 2010. To give you an idea how often some of the British public still use postage stamps, it was only a few months ago that I finally used the last of the twenty or so stamps that I bought back in 2010…

But combining postage stamps with rock music is surprisingly common. 

Here’s a set issued by Canada to celebrate their finest export after Maple Syrup: Rush…

The USA has a Musical Icons series which featured Jimi Hendrix in 2014…

There’s Elvis…

…and Ray Charles…

India has celebrated Ravi Shankar…

Whilst Canada has also celebrated their eightieth greatest export (just behind fracking and ahead of Celine Dion) the *lovely* Shania Twain. 

Pink Floyd albums have famously retained their value, so are these collectors stamps going to be good investments?

There’s one way to find out: take a look at The Beatles stamps from 2007 and see what prices they attract, and the answer is “Don’t expect to retire on the proceeds”.

A sheet of four first class Beatles stamps now fetches between £2 and £3 on eBay. When you consider a first class stamp is now 64p (when did that happen? I remember when a stamp cost 6 1/2 p!) if you pay less than £2.56 you will actually save money buying Beatles stamps second hand on eBay rather than from the post office…

So perhaps the best approach is to buy a few and keep them in your wallet, so the next time someone asks if you have a stamp on you, you can pull out a miniature copy of Piper at the Gates of Dawn and brighten your day very slightly. 

Enjoy. You can order the Pink Floyd stamps online using this link

Top Ten Stamp Related Songs:

1. Have I Told You, Philately, That I Love You? – Van Morrison
2. The Stanley Gibbons – The Goodies
3. Pretty Fly For a White British Guiana (one cent magenta) – The Offspring
4. Never Letter Slip Away – Andrew Gold
5. Just When I Needed You, Post – Randy VanWarmer
6. Bad (First Day) Cover Version – Pulp
7. Penny from the Black – Jennifer Lopez
8. Talk Show Post – Radiohead
9. Postage Of Love – Razorlight
10. We Are Mailing – Rod Stewart