Royal Mint & Royal Mail Collaborate on Sherlockian Philatelic – Numismatic Covers

“… re-reading a letter which he had received by the morning post.”

– The Adventure of the Cardboard Box (CARD)

On August 18, 2020, the British Royal Mail is releasing 10 new Sherlockian themed postal stamps. The first six stamps have designs that reference the BBC Sherlock television series that starred Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes.

A unique feature of these six stamps is that hidden designs are exposed when the stamps are exposed to UVC lighting.

The remaining four stamps represent “classic” images from the original stories written by by Arthur Conan Doyle. Sorry, nothing happens when you expose these to UVC lighting.

Now, the Royal Mail is a tad more creative than our United States Postal Service when it comes to creating secondary products to promote their items. They teamed up with the Royal Mint, who created two medal designs that were each struck in two different metals to create four different Philatelic – Numismatic Covers.

The first medal is used with the Sherlock – Moriarty cover, which you can read about HERE.

OBVERSE:  GET  /  SHERLOCK (over a background of a brick wall)

REVERSE: The / Game / Is On

Round, 38.45 mm, Cupro-Nickel, 7,000 mintage

or

Round, 38.45 mm, .925 Silver, 600 mintage

 

The second medal is part of the Genius of Sherlock Holmes over, which you can read about HERE.

OBVERSE:  An` / interesting  / and / unusual / case’

REVERSE: 221B / Baker / Street

Round, 38.45 mm, Cupro-Nickel, 7,000 mintage

or

Round, 38.45 mm, .925 Silver, 600 mintage

The PNCs with the cupro-nickel medal is available for £19.99 while the silver medal PNC retails for £99.99.

These items are available for purchase at the Royal Mail’s website.

We would not be surprised if there would be additional Philatelic – Numismatic Covers by some enterprising vendors with the release of these 10 stamps. If that occurs, we will keep you posted.

Thanks to the 13th Garrideb, Peter E. Blau, for bringing this to our attention.