Postage Stamps - Royal Mail 'Swop'

For many years I ran an office from home. Even though this stopped well over a decade ago, I still had loads of postage stamps of different denominations which I had used then. Used to have postal scales, so could ensure correct postage was always used.

Still had so many stamps, 1p, 2p 5p, 10p, 20p, etc. etc. When I added them all up (at face value), over forty quids worth.

So, I was slightly alarmed when I read that as from 31st January 2023 I would not longer be able to use these. Noted that Royal Mail would be having a swop system in place at the end of March this year, so a couple of weeks ago downloaded that form and filled it in.

Sent that, plus all those stamps back (free post), and waited to see what would happen. Yesterday, I received back from Royal Mail all those stamps replaced for same denominations BUT with the new stamps with bac codes. Where RMail no longer produces a particular value of sfamp they sent me, as a substitute, those value in the new second class stamps.

So this swop shop works well and, at present, quickly. I would have preferred having ALL my stamps to be either Second or First class, but there was no option for that.

All the new barcodes stamps are much larger than the old ones, In the past I have often just made up the value of 1st or 2nd class with several stamps, could not use many of these new ones as they would take up far too much room.

Anyway, just to let people know that the swop system works well, so if you have lots of stamps, and know that you are highly unlikely to be using them all before the 31st January, then do download this form and use it.