Royal Mail's Olympic initiatives: golden post boxes and next day stamps!
The Olympic Games start in a couple of days in London, and you can almost feel the global rush of excitement! Who will crowned the best of the best? And how many medals will each country get?
Great Britain is now immersed in preparations for the games, and Royal Mail is not an exception! They've come up with a couple of interesting initiatives to honour Great Britain's gold medalists.
To begin with, for each gold medal earned by Team GB, they plan to paint one of their famous red post boxes... gold! That's right - for the first time ever, their iconic post boxes will be dressed in a different color. And the mailboxes will be picked according to the home town of the winners, so if you're cheering for your town's local athlete, keep an eye on your post box!
But that is not all! Royal Mail is also engaging in a race against time to have a commemorative stamp and their respective mini-sheet printed for each golden medalist the day after their medals are won - shortening the stamp making process to 24 hours or less!
Mr. Andrew Hammond, Royal Mail's director of stamps and collectables explains how they plan to achieve this remarkable feat:
They will work around the clock to accomplish this operation (including weekends!), delivering the special stamps overnight to 500 post offices around the UK.
If you live in Great Britain, and see one of these special post boxes or stamps, do post a comment below with a link to a photo! We'd love to see how they look in real life! :)


35 comments so far
Awesome idea!
Cheers
Gillian in Australia
http://www.israelpost.co.il/postboolaee.nsf/HanpakotView/B4E608B12329D2E3C2257A1200474D66?opendocument
http://www.israelpost.co.il/postboolaee.nsf/HanpakotView/2FC1788FF2C5EBADC2257A12004798BE?opendocument
http://www.israelpost.co.il/postboolaee.nsf/HanpakotView/67BB91569EC605EEC2257A120046EC88?opendocument
HK post issue the stamp of "London Olympic Games 2012" today
That's true! I'm looking forward to pictures!
Gold Mail Box locations will be found on this web site
http://www.goldpostboxes.com/
I am looking forward to seeing a gold painted post box in his home town of Dorchester in my county of Dorset.
Has anyone here already got hold of one of these stamps and/or golden postbox and could upload an image here for us please?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19116762
Thanks a lot for the stamps Link.
Here is Huddersfield's gold post box near the train station, thanks to Ed Clancy winning gold in the Cycling Track Men's Team Pursuit.