Background  
It is widely known that Australia Post pioneered the idea of personal photographs alongside postage stamps and their postal patrons have truly taken to the concept. This product was later to be adopted and adapted by many countries, including Great Britain.

Most countries have a perforated tab in a portrait format to the left or the right of the stamp area, thus ensuring that there is a clear divide between the public (stamp) and private (photograph) elements.  An exception is Canada where they allow you to have your photograph on an actual stamp.

The Process  
To obtain a photostamp from any of the participating postal authorities involves the same process, whether a face-to-face service, or by mail order.  You supply, or have taken, your photograph, complete an order form and make payment.  That is all that there is to it for the customer.

The Post Office then takes over and scans the image digitally into a computer, possibly adjusting the contrast and undertaking image cropping to ensure that the key element (you!) will be included.  They then sometimes run-off a test print of the photographs only on non-stamp paper to ensure that the result will be satisfactory. The pre-printed stamp sheets are then printed and in seconds the blank panels reserved for the photographs are filled with your image.  Stocks are then either handed back to you or posted directly to your home.

It really is that simple, although the technology behind the process is quite sophisticated.  Australia took this digital printing method one stage further for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.  They printed complete sheets of stamps overnight that depicted their gold medallists and had them on sale by lunch the next day, but that’s another story!

Royal Mail Trials  
Royal Mail wanted something special that would attract non-stamp collecting members of the public to The Stamp Show 2000.  They worked with The House of Questa and Kodak to offer Smilers photostamps to exhibition visitors.  The basic procedure was like that described above and involved completing a simple order request form, paying, posing for your photograph and a short time later you collected the finished product.  It proved to be a very popular feature of the show and attracted a great deal of media interest at the time.

The following two Christmas’s saw Royal Mail offering a mail-order service, whereby you submitted a photograph with an order form and payment and a few days later you received your Smilers For Christmas sheets through the letter box.  

These successful trials gave Royal Mail the opportunity to research the market, the potential for profit and the technology, clearly giving its approval to continuing with this initiative.

Incidentally, a full listing of the sheet combinations produced for overprinting with photographs appeared in the British Philatelic Bulletin, April 2002 issue and has been kept up to date in later editions.

There was an exciting development in late 2001, when Instant Smilers were launched on a trial basis and the background to this trial will form a second article.

Product Pricing  
The Smilers product appears not to have captured the imagination of the public quite as much recently as in those early days at The Stamp Show 2000 and at the initial two Christmas periods.  Indeed, there were rumours in collector circles during 2002 that the product was going to be withdrawn due to the high cost of taking part in the experience and lack of demand.

It is true that the costs have steadily risen for twenty photostamps.  At The Stamp Show 2000 they cost £10.00, Christmas 2000 was priced at £11.90, Christmas 2001 saw a price hike to £12.95 and the current cost is £14.95 (except the World Cup issue, which is oddly priced at £12.95).

The table below offers a pricing comparison of products from those countries that, like Royal Mail, have taken the product beyond simple trials.

Notes:
1. It is difficult to provide an exact comparison due to the differing economic conditions locally, taxes levied on the product, the inclusion, or exclusion, of additional handling / postage fees and level of profitability sought.
2. A minimum purchase of two sheets is necessary in New Zealand.  As all other countries supply a minimum of one sheet, the price shown for New Zealand has been halved to show the cost of a single sheet.
3. All foreign currencies converted into sterling on 10 November 2002 and rounded-off.
4. Prices shown include inland postage and packing where this is charged, as certain countries levy an extra delivery and /or handling charge; whilst other countries include ordinary or even registered delivery ‘free’.
5. As sheet sizes vary, the end column indicates the cost of twenty photographs (i.e. excluding the stamp face value), as twenty to a sheet is the most common format and is the UK sheet size.
6. Where a country issues different denominations of personalised stamp, the inland local delivery rate stamp has been chosen.  For the UK, this is now first class, as second class Smilers are no longer sold.
7. All product trade names are acknowledged.
8. Product names chosen for the countries listed in the table are United Kingdom: Smilers and Instant Smilers, Australia: Personalised Stamps and P-Stamps, Canada: Picture Postage, Indonesia: Personalized Stamps and PRISMA, New Zealand: Personalised Stamps, Singapore: MyStamp, Slovakia: Personal Stamp.

The figures speak for themselves.  It is true that the Royal Mail product gets cheaper with larger orders, but then, so does the cost from those other countries listed.  The second and subsequent sheets from Singapore for instance, are all 50% cheaper than the first sheet, whereby £5.60 for twenty photographs drops to £4.20 when forty photographs are obtained. For customers who wish to test the idea of Smilers ^TM, I believe that there is a pricing issue and, therefore, resistance to purchasing.

My employment is centred around print production, so I realise all too well that there are fixed, set-up costs.  In the case of personalised photostamps, this includes all the processes recorded above, so the initial costs are as high for producing a single sheet as for one hundred sheets, thus enabling the larger runs to become cheaper. Even so, there appears to be a large discrepancy between the UK price and everywhere else.

Let us hope that with such pressure on the management of Royal Mail to make profits for both the business and the government, that pricing does not cause the concept to fade away.

Generic Smilers^TM  
These sheets have pre-printed, non-personalised imagery or text on the label area and are sold to enable collectors to get the stamps without the cost of using the personalised route.  They are sold with a 50p over face value surcharge.

Perhaps encouragingly for Smilers, a recent Stamp Preview shows that the Smilers Generic Sheets are now able to be added to standing order accounts and that ‘approximately four sheets’ will be issued annually.  This presumably shows a level of commitment for the photostamps concept.  Incidentally, France has this year copied the Royal Mail concept by also producing Generic Sheet in several different versions.

Trials Elsewhere  
Trials, beyond those countries detailed in the table and often inaugurated at philatelic exhibitions or trade shows, have included Belgium, China, France, Hong Kong SAR, India, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand and probably elsewhere.  (Additional input from readers is welcomed, please.)  These countries have all purposely been left out of the price comparison table, as trials are invariably not priced at the post-trial cost.

One can be sure that other countries will jump on the band wagon over the coming years in order to offer an element of fun for their customers and an extra revenue source for themselves.  

Rarities  
This new branch of collecting will have a good following by a small but keen group of collectors and rarities are already starting to appear. Some of our own Smilers are already living up to their name for philatelic visionaries, as prices start to rise on some of the unique sheet formats that most collectors neglected to obtain at the time.  If Royal Mail ever release print quantities of the personalised sheets, then expect some surprises – pleasant if you own them, not so pleasant if you do not.

It is not just in the UK where there are potential rarities.  In India, where trials were undertaken in 2001 at an international trade show, a mere 513 sheets were produced. Considering that there were seven totally different sheet types on sale and if every sheet was sold in equal quantities (unlikely), there can only ever be a maximum of 73 sets in the world.  As the show was non-philatelic, it is also unlikely that more than a handful of sets were philatelically inspired and retained in collections.

Therefore, my advice to any reader considering photostamps is that you start collecting now and fill those gaps while there is still the possibility of achieving relative completeness. Log on to www.royalmail.com/smilers or pick-up a leaflet at your local Post Office. Alternatively, ring 0845 074 2000 between 0830 and 1730 Monday to Friday and join in the fun.

Royal Mail is due shortly to make ordering even simpler by permitting digital imagery to be submitted, thus enabling online orders to be placed. Keep an eye on the above-mentioned web-site for the launch date.

Imagery  
Listed below are most of the Smilers sheets to give viewers an idea of the range created by Royal Mail and its customers. There are other sheets in existence, especially in series one where many items are missing from the listings at this stage.

They are split into three distinct series, namely:

Series One - the personalised photostamps initiated at The Stamp Show 2000 bearing a customer provided image

2001 Clown (sheet of ten)

2001 Mona Lisa (sheet of ten)

2001 Dennis The Menace (sheet of ten)

2001 Policeman (sheet of ten)

2001 Teddy bear (sheet of ten)

Hello Vapour trail (sheet of twenty)

 Listing not pursued beyond what is shown here

Series Two - the generic (unpersonalised) sheets  

2000 The Stamp Show 2000. 1,724 produced. (Selling late 2004 at £23)  Cat. £50

2000 1st class Crackers (The Post Office imprint) (Selling late 2003 at £110) Cat £190

2000 2nd class Letter box (The Post Office imprint) (Selling late 2003 at £65) Cat £190

2001 TSS2000 imprint removed and replaced with Royal Mail logo (Selling late 2003 at £89) Cat £125

2001 Cartoons (Selling late 2003 at £30) at £70

2001 Hallmarks (Selling late 2003 at £45) Cat £85

2001 Crackers (Consignia imprint) (Selling late 2003 at £poa) A pair of 1st and 2nd sell for £750

2001 Letter Box (Consignia imprint) (Selling late 2003 at £poa)

2002 Occasions (Selling late 2003 at £28) Cat £40

2002 World Cup (Selling late 2003 at £18) Cat £35

2002 Knock-Knock (Dennis / Teddy) (Full sheet) (Selling late 2003 at £17)

2002 Knock-Knock (Dennis / Teddy) (Close-up) Cat £35

2002 Santa sheet (full sheet) (Selling late 2003 at £15) Cat £35

2002 Santa sheet (close-up)

2003 Flowers  (Selling late 2003 at £14) Cat £14

2003 Occasions Tick Box (Selling late 2003 at £12) Cat £30

2003 Crosswords (Selling late 2003 at £12) Cat £30

2003 Christmas sheet one - Winter Robins (Selling late 2003 at £12) Cat £30

2003 Christmas sheet two - 1st class: icicle sculpture (Selling late 2003 at £9)

2003 Christmas sheet three - 2nd class: ice spiral (Selling late 2003 at £8)

2004 Hello Hong Kong Cat £15. £9

2004 Occasions envelopes. Cat £15 £9

2004 Christmas 1st and 2nd class on one sheet (Selling late 2004 at £9)

2005 Farm Animals (Selling 2005 at £8)

Listing not pursued beyond what is shown here

Series Three - the Business Smilers, whereby the labels and decorative margins are personalised  

                       c.2001 Eagle Coaches.

2002 Cancer Research UK

2002 Football - Arsenal FC 2,002 produced. £30

2002 Football - Liverpool FC  5,000 produced. £28

2002 Football - Manchester United FC sheet 1 2,002 produced £65

2002 Football - Manchester United FC sheet 2 5,000 produced. £30

2002 Football - Manchester United FC FDC

2002 Football - Norwich City FC 2,002 produced. £28

200_(presumably 2002?) Football - Rangers FC 1,000 produced. £33

2003 Stampex (Spring) 3,100 produced £23

2003 Football - Arsenal Centurions 2,000 produced £35

2003 Stampex (Autumn) 3,500 produced £13

2003 Rugby World Cup Team2,000 produced £55

2003 Maine Road Football Team. 2,003 produced £25

2003 Rushstamps 45th anniversary Sheet One 1,000 issued £11

2003 Rushstamps Sheet Two 1,000 produced £10

2003 Spurs Football Team 2,000 produced £25

2003 Rugby Winners overprint £75

2004 Spring Stampex £12

2004 Collect British Stamps sheet 1 The Hobby of Kings Souvenir Sheets £10

2004 Collect British Stamps sheet 2 The Hobby of Kings GB High Values QV-£1 PUC £10

2004 Collect British Stamps sheet 3The Hobby of Kings GB High Values  1867-1955 1,000 produced £10

2004 Rugby Sheet 1  2,003 produced} Pair £38

2004 Rugby sheet 2   2,003 produced)}

2004 Thunderbirds 2,00 produced £18

2004 Dr Who Collection Sheet 1 Companions £55

2004 Dr Who Collection Sheet 2 Companions 2  1,000 produced £39

2004 Dr Who Collection Sheet 3 Daleks  1,000 produced £39

2004 Dr Who Collection Sheet 4 Tom Baker 2,000 produced £40

2004 Elvis Presley Movie Collection Sheet 1  2,500 produced £20

2004 Elvis Presley Movie Collection Sheet 2  2,500 produced £20

2004 Elvis Presley Movie Collection Sheet 3  2,500 produced £20

2004 Elvis Presley Movie Collection Sheet 4  2,500 produced £20

2004 Autumn Stampex £9

2004 Spiderman 2,500 produced £30

2004 X-Men 2,500 produced £30

2004 Gold Medal Winners Sheet 1   4,950 produced £18

2004 Gold Medal Winners  Sheet 2  4,950 produced £18

2004 Jordan Formula 1 Racing 1991-2004 950 produced £20

Listing not pursued beyond what is shown here

(Unedited version of the 'Philatelic Bulletin' article with pricing comparisons, etc. retained, written 2003)

 Page updated on 1 April 2006.  All material Copyright  © 2000-Date Glenn H Morgan FRPSL.