TheBritishBloke wrote:

Jaffer wrote:

TheBritishBloke wrote:Gonna cost over £5 for a book of 12 first class stamps now.. Geez.

And 19p more per USA request, not too bad -really-

I know it may be a 10% increase or so, but it's not really going to break the bank now, is it.

But they are raising the PO Box prices by £60/Year.. Bloody hell.

From an economic point of view, it is absolutely outrageous.

But for us collectors, my main annoyance is I have to rush all my uk requests now which is slightly annoying.

Outrageous? It may be the biggest increase, but it's not a lot.

You may not know this, but the UK government is considering privatising the Royal Mail, meaning the prices could go up even more depending on how greedy the new owners got.

I know it may be annoying that you have to rush your requests, but depending on what stamps you have, the value may increase with it anyway.

To elaborate, when I say ''outrageous'', I mean raising the price of anything by 10% in one go. But yes, overall, it is small.

Oh god... That could be a disaster for you guys :s Our electricity is privatised here- it has been a shambles as long as I have been alive.

The new prices are very unaffordable for me and I will struggle to afford them I assure you, Another £1 for every 5 US letters is alot to me.

Know RM is being privatised. But not interested in all the scare mongering speculating (don't mean your comments). Will wait and see what happens when they are taken over.

Jaffer wrote:

TheBritishBloke wrote:Gonna cost over £5 for a book of 12 first class stamps now.. Geez.

And 19p more per USA request, not too bad -really-

I know it may be a 10% increase or so, but it's not really going to break the bank now, is it.

But they are raising the PO Box prices by £60/Year.. Bloody hell.

From an economic point of view, it is absolutely outrageous.

But for us collectors, my main annoyance is I have to rush all my uk requests now which is slightly annoying.

Outrageous? It may be the biggest increase, but it's not a lot.

You may not know this, but the UK government is considering privatising the Royal Mail, meaning the prices could go up even more depending on how greedy the new owners got.

I know it may be annoying that you have to rush your requests, but depending on what stamps you have, the value may increase with it anyway.

Is it just me or is everything going up in the UK - apart from my wages..?

TheBritishBloke wrote:Gonna cost over £5 for a book of 12 first class stamps now.. Geez.

And 19p more per USA request, not too bad -really-

I know it may be a 10% increase or so, but it's not really going to break the bank now, is it.

But they are raising the PO Box prices by £60/Year.. Bloody hell.

From an economic point of view, it is absolutely outrageous.

But for us collectors, my main annoyance is I have to rush all my uk requests now which is slightly annoying.

Gonna cost over £5 for a book of 12 first class stamps now.. Geez.

And 19p more per USA request, not too bad -really-

I know it may be a 10% increase or so, but it's not really going to break the bank now, is it.

But they are raising the PO Box prices by £60/Year.. Bloody hell.

I've just looked at the table of prices for the UK April 2011 rise: From the UK to the US, 20g will go up from 97p to £1.10. For big envelopes with 10x8s weighing 100g, the small packet/printed paper rate rises from £1.82 to £2.07.

For mine (which contain the big SAE as well, since they are going in the opposite direction to any going back to the US, so check the weight), which generally weigh just under 100g, I currently put on 2 x large letter 1st stamps (current value 66p each) and 1 x large letter 2nd (current value 51p) which is a penny more than the 100g current rate of £1.82. From April the same stamps will have a value of 75p and 58p respectively, giving a total of £2.08, again a penny more than the new rate of £2.07.

For 20g ones, if you've used a large letter 1st stamp and a small 2nd class stamp, their combined value will rise from 98p to £1.11, so again the value of the stamps will rise to cover the journey back after the price rise.

I haven't checked the values inbetween (and don't intend to), or the rises to Europe, but if this is being done consistently and logically (and there is no saying that it necessarily is being, I would put money on there being anomalies somewhere) and you're sending from the US or anywhere described here as "Rest of World" you should get envelopes back as long as you've put the ones with either 1st or 2nd on.

Hope that makes some sort of sense.

RobertaRight wrote:I was wondering the same about US stamps a while ago. Thinking they are forever, right?

But they raised price for the service (sending international letter), too, meaning the same amount of stamps would not be enough despite their increased value. If I am not mistaken.

How it will be with UK I do not know. Yet.

The forever stamps have the liberty bell on them and recently they released some holiday themed forever stamps with evergreen and pinecones on them. Those will always be worth the first class value and the worth will go up any time the price is increased, but they should be fine for using international.

Once I know what the international increase will be I can figure out how many stamps the letters will be.

Right now, to send a small photo to the UK is 0.98--I use two forever stamps and a 0.10 one. The 0.10 stamp will NOT be worth more in the increase, but the forever stamps value will go up, I just don't know by how much.

BossC

Royal Mail has a PDF of the new prices here
ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/publi ... cument.pdf

Non-denominated stamps (1st Class, 2nd Class, Worldwide, etc) will go up in value to match the new prices. Stamps with numerical values on them (1p, 10p, 25p, etc) will stay the same.

I haven't compared the new prices to the old ones yet, but even if use non-denominated stamps, you may need to add more.

Bloody royal mail, I am going to have to rush my UK requests now