2014, Jersey Post joins 'Post&Go'. The Jersey flag

The novelty about these issues and the amazing commercial success of the 'Post & Go' releases in the UK, powered by Royal Mail, is attracting the attention of other philatelic services. Year after year, collectors and dealers from around the world increase the demand and interest for these type of philatelic issues. The first postal administration to join the 'Club Post & Go' was Jersey Post.

Just one year earlier, during the Spring Stampex 2013, Royal Mail launched the 'Post & Go Services', the new philatelic offering, consisting of postal kiosks plus the 'Smiler' service for personalized stamps. The Intelligent AR company was contracted to take charge of the maintenance, development, and commercial operation of the postal kiosks. From March 2013, this equipment began a tour around the main national philatelic fairs and exhibitions, and even travelled to Australia during the Melbourne World Stamp Exhibition (see articles >, also published in VARIABLE 28 et seq.). The great opportunity for Jersey Post came with the introduction of the new postal kiosks developed by Intelligent AR, launched at the Spring Stampex 2014 (see article >, and VARIABLE 32). On the 'Post & Go' stand, in addition to the three new Royal Mail postal kiosks (numbered A003, A004 and A005), Jersey Post also had its own postal kiosk, with the special code J001 (right). This equipment was in operation for four days, during Stampex, and it is not expected to be installed on the island. It will join the 'Post & Go Services', and will travel to some of the major philatelic events, along with the Royal Mail equipment.

Following in the Royal Mail’s footsteps, the first 'Post & Go' design by Jersey Post is dedicated to the national flag. It is a design by the True North Manchester agency. The rolls of labels are manufactured by Walsall Security Printers, with identical characteristics to their UK 'brother' counterparts. The current flag was adopted by the States of Jersey on June 12th 1979, and proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth II on December 10th 1980.

This new design could be obtained, from February 19th 2014, from the J001 postal kiosk, installed at Spring Stampex 2014, (left strip, below), and also printed by the internal use equipment B001 (right strip).

This equipment was used to print all the ATMs sold by the philatelic service - in strips of 6 values, both mint and CTO, the mint strips included in the presentation packs (upper image), and first day covers (right). Unfortunately, Jersey Post did not make ​​available to collectors the pictorial flag first day postmark prepared for this issue.

Following the standard set by Royal Mail, the new Intelligent AR kiosk for Jersey Post is also set up to issue the ATMs with 6 basic postage values. The current Jersey Post postal system created only 4 postal rate zones, so they decided to include two rates for domestic mail (Local Letter & Local Large), two for mail to United Kingdom (UK Letter & UK Large), and the two basic rates to Europe and the rest of the world (Europe & Intl Letter). As well as the other Intelligent AR 'Post & Go' stamps, the lower code is unique to each stamp, and consists of a block of 6 leading digits (B2GB14 & B2JE14 in the images), in which 'B' corresponds to the brand machine (Intelligent AR), '2' for the month of issue, 'GB' or 'JE' for the country of issue, and '14' for the year. Then, another block of 4 digits identifies the postal kiosk (J001 or B001). Finally two blocks of 4 and 3 digits, corresponding to the session and stamp number, respectively.

As seen in the images above, the order of the stamps is different depending on whether the strip was issued by the postal kiosk or the internal use equipment.

Furthermore, among the numerous errors produced by the Intelligent AR equipment during Spring Stampex 2014, one concerned the new Jersey issue. In the mint sets sold at the Jersey Post stand at the philatelic event, (printed before the fair with the B001 equipment), the 'k' in the two face value indicators for the UK appears in lowercase ! Nobody noticed the error, and even if they noticed it, did not give it any importance, or perhaps they did it, on purpose, to generate interest ??!! The result is that the first visitors to the stand purchased all the sets for sale, which sold out in a couple of hours. A good deal for Jersey Post, a disappointment for these issues, and another reason for anger by collectors, who welcomed the new Jersey issue with great interest.

Intelligent AR postal kiosks can use two different rolls of labels, so they allow the issue, on a single machine, of ATMs with two different designs (or series of designs). For the J001 kiosks, they decided to install the new 'Jersey flag' design on the first reel, and the UK 'Union flag' design on the second reel (screen images below). This issue of stamps by two different postal administrations from the same machine, perhaps the first joint issue related to ATMs, produced some curious combinations, such as UK stamps with Jersey Post receipts. On the other hand, the Jersey stamps bought in the postal kiosk were billed with a 20% surcharge on the face value, because of the VAT on sales made by Jersey Post in the UK. This surcharge does not appear in the receipts with the details of the issued stamps (right), but only in the bank card receipt with the total paid.

During the Spring Stampex 2014, Jersey Post shared a stand with the Guernsey / Alderney, Gibraltar and the Isle of Man philatelic services. Nobody is aware that these and perhaps other postal administrations have taken note of the commercial success of the new Jersey 'Post & Go' issue, and it would not be surprising that new countries would join, probably coinciding with the celebration of the next Stampex, the club of 'Post & Go' issues ... powered by Royal Mail.

The Jersey Post kiosk joins 'Post&Go' on tour

After the introduction of the new Jersey Post Intelligent AR postal kiosk at the London Spring Stampex 2014, the machine joined the tour of the 'Post & Go' equipment, powered by Royal Mail, but participating only in major philatelic events. The first trip of the J001 postal kiosk was, on April 11th and 12th 2014, to the philatelic fair and exhibition held to mark the 85th Congress of the Association of Scottish Philatelic Societies. For the first time, Jersey Post attended this philatelic event with a promotional stand (right image).

At Perth, the kiosk issued ATMs with the 'Jersey flag' design, and the UK 'Union flag' definitive design, both without any special text, and with the code B4GB14 J001-.

(More information, see the article dedicated to the 85th Scottish Congress, also published in VARIABLE 33).

Code change in PHILAKOREA 2014

After the Congress of Perth, the next destination of the Jersey Post kiosk was South Korea, on the occasion of the celebration of the PHILAKOREA 2014 World Stamp Exhibition. The machine was in service from August 7th to 12th 2014, on the Royal Mail stand, along with the rest of the 'Post & Go' equipment.

Considering that other postal administrations might join the 'Post & Go' project in the future, Intelligent AR decided to establish a new code system for its international postal kiosks, using two letters identifying the country. Thus, for PHILAKOREA 2014, the Jersey Post kiosk identification was changed from 'J001' to 'JE01'.

The new 'Post&Go' kiosk at Broad Street

With the JE01 kiosk 'on tour', now fully integrated into the Royal Mail 'Post&Go services', and a superb commercial result, Jersey Post decided to install the first permanent Intelligent AR postal kiosk, on the island. This new machine, with the JE02 code, was installed on September 4th 2014, at the Jersey Post main post office in Broad Street, St. Helier, the capital.

It is not the first nor the only postal kiosk installed in this post office. From December 2007, within the 'Post&Pay' project, Jersey Post began the installation of several Integrex / Fujitsu postal kiosks at different post offices and a shopping centre. In September 2014, the Broad Street post office already had five postal kiosks in service, well placed in an area near the counters, where users can arrange their basic postal operations. The machines were designed and developed for postal usage, and are widely accepted and used by post office customers (see articles >, also published in VARIABLE 12, 18 & 32).

	On the other hand, the 'Post&Go' kiosk is installed very prominently in the middle of the philatelic department, mainly visited by tourists, and surrounded by the wide range of Jersey Post philatelic products.

Although it is similar to the JE01 model, (designed primarily for philatelic purposes), the JE02 machine is an updated version, enhanced with some new features and functions, which will allow, in the future, for its adaptation to include some basic postal operations. During the first week in service, the JE02 kiosk issued ATMs with the 'Jersey flag' design in one reel and, whilst waiting for new designs for 2015, the UK 'Union flag' definitive design in the other reel (images). All ATMs include identification of the office where the machine is installed Broad Street

The printing of Jersey Post and Royal Mail stamps by the same machine is hard to understand beyond their philatelic conception and supposed philatelic interest, and could easily cause misunderstandings and confusion among users in a real post office environment.

To try to prevent this, Jersey Post placed a sign on top of the postal kiosk indicating that Royal Mail stamps are not valid for outgoing mail sent from Jersey (right image), and are also subject to a surcharge of 5%, corresponding to the Jersey VAT or goods and services tax (GST).