Christmas: 5 November 2013

[Mary Naeem]

Christmas: 5 November 2013

The Christmas stamps this year have been designed by Robert Maude and Sarah Davies using art from previous centuries - except for the £1.88.

Royal Mail have explored the Madonna and Child imagery across the widest breadth of timescales and artistic interpretations, not restricted to representations from only British sources. They have also decided that one of the designs would be reflective of ethnic diversity in the UK*. As such, they commissioned a new Madonna and Child image for the £1.88 stamp by Fadi Mikhail.

As usual the stamps will be in standard and large letter definitive size and self adhesive. This year the stamps are in a similar format but larger in both dimensions - 24 x 28mm and 34 x 28mm.

There will also be a conventionally-gummed miniature sheet containing all stamps, booklets of 12 x 1st and 12 x 2nd stamps - which will be larger than the conventional definitive booklets - which may bring some problems for non-post office retailers like supermarkets.

The Smilers Generic sheet with 8 (few people spotted that typo!) each of the 2nd and 1st class, 2 x 88p, and one each of the £1.28 and £1.88. This means that there will be only one set of Cartor litho-printed stamps in each sheet.

The two 2007 Madonna stamps will not be reissued this year, and will be replaced by the 2013 to provide the religious alternative for the next few years.
* The last time this approach was used was with the 2005 Christmas issue, which used the Black Madonna painted by an unknown Haitian artist. Most criticism, however, came from the Hindu community leaders regarding the 68p which was illustrated with a Mughal painting from India dating from 1620. However, despite assertions in some parts of the press, on the web, and especially by eBay sellers, the stamps were never withdrawn and are no more valuable than their contempories.