British Strike Mail labels and Covers.

 Bit of an oversight labelling Neil Armstrong on an Apollo 14 stamp. Missed it by 3.

Rod, I've never seen the perforated examples from the last post...very nice. I have the perforated sheet you showed in the clipping, but it's badly toned and in the discarded box.
I'll move those when I start a thread about Strike Mail labels....coming shortly. [Truth is, I thought I had started one already but upon searching. found I hadn't].

GB Apollo 14
Penny Black
Johnson Grover 33 Warren St W1
10p Dromoderry (sic)

Further Information on Vectis.
Observed on cover.

VECTIS POSTAL SERVICE

The first national postal strike created a unique situation in British postal history where the lifting of the monopoly
allowed private postal services to operate under licence. The Vectis Postal Service came into operation on
January 22nd, 1971 with a delivery area covering the whole of the Isle of Wight. The stamps were issued
imperforate on January 22nd and then in rouletted sheets of 48 on January 23rd. The design was by R. J. Cawdell
and was printed by offset litho by Robert Vale, Printer Limited of Ryde.

The Vectis postal service came into operation in 1971 when a delivery area covering the whole of
the Isle of Wight was started. The stamps were issued imperforate on January 22nd and then in
rouletted sheets of 48 on January 23rd.
The design was by R.J.Caldwell and were printed by offset litho by Robert Vale Ltd (Ryde)
Due to the length of the postal strike (and to the success of the Vectis Postal Service) a second
printing of stamps became necessary.
The new issue, in green instead of blue, was first issued on the 16th February 1971.
By this time upwards of 1,500 were being handled daily by the service, which was organised and set
up by a group of Ryde business men, led by R.W.Cawdell, C.C., who acted as head postmaster for
the service.
Both issues were produced by offset litho in rouletted sheets of 48, in one value only: 5p (1/- or one shilling)

these stamps also come in a presentation pack (scarce)

Philatelic cover
www.barrym0iow.co.uk/iow/

Well, Anping, I neither know much nor have much in the way of postal history in my collection, but what is there is sadly neglected.  I need to do something with it at some point.

Anyway, just wanted to say that this is, indeed, a beautiful piece of material, in my opinion, and I really appreciate that you chose to share it--thanks!

There are several variations of this marking on Jim Forte's Postal History website. Here is a cleaner strike of the one shown above.

I am assuming that "27171" represents the date January 27, 1971 and perhaps is the date the authorization was effective. A second assumption is that "FEB 1971" is the period during which the authorization was effective.



Here is what was likely an early form of the hand stamp, referencing the Ministry authorization "27171."



Assuming that the authorization references are dates, the addition of "2271" to the marking below suggests a modification/refinement of the initial authorization was made on February 2, 1971.



Lastly, as the strike lingered on, "FEB" was removed from the Special Courier Mail marking.



To be clear, all of the above is supposition on my part that would need to be validated by Ministry of Post and Telecom directives regarding this class of strike mail.

Thank you for those observations, which now fit nicely and make much more sense.



Interesting extra snippets there. Thanks LB1.

Since posting the images of the Dayan's Emergency Delivery Service labels, I've found an imperforate sheet on eBay that shows these were printed interspersed with the towns Hampton, Twickenham, Richmond and Kew Gardens. Nonetheless, the anchor emblem is still odd. Perforate labels also exist, as do Dayan's International labels, of a different design.

Here's a philatelic cover showing a February 22nd date; postmarked before the change of currency. This shows examples of the towns Hampton and Kew Gardens:

I was mulling over your first suggestion, however, it isn't that apparent on the images but this is a coastal scene. Here you can see the cottage by the sea and a small fishing boat. There's also a hamlet in the distance with a church: