Sticky or Self-adhesive Stamps.
 

Rod Walsom

 Letter Size Guide

 Self-adhesive or Sticky

First Class and Second Class stamps.

became sticky or self-adhesive several years ago. This meant that you did not have to lick them any more.
The other month the Royal Mail introduced self adhesive to other stamps.  Now you can get self adhesive in 50p, £1, £1.50, £2.00,  £3.00 and £5.
This of course has prooved very useful to many offices and for private consumption across the country. After all who wants to lick stamps?
But the Royal Mail have also introduced Ingenious security levels for these stamps.
First of all these stamps now have the Royal Mail engraved across them. They also have 2 tabs placed either side of the stamps at the bottem. The idea being that when you try removing the stamps from an envelope that has been sent to you, these 2 tabs will get left behind on the envelope. This of course stops anyone thinking that a stamp has not been franked as well as any one trying to counterfit them.
Apprently it is very rare that a stamp has not been franked. If you take a magnifying glass to the suspected non franked stamp you will see some black ink. This means of course that the stamp has been franked by the Royal Mail making it illeagal to sell again.

A tip in using these self adhesive stamps. Take the stamp off the card they came on, from the bottem lifting it up. This way the tabs are unlikely to stay behind. If you peel the stamp from the top the tabs will possibly stay on the card making it illegal to use.