The English 2nd and Scotland's 1st lion now have grey heads on the sheet issues, replacing what were silver heads. The Scotland stamp has been seen in this guide before in the 90th Birthday book but is now likely to be appearing in general use. These are printed by Cartor.
The 5p joins the ranks of DLR's M16L issues, although this is not on security backing paper.
And, just for fun and fond memories, here is a selection of stamps that appeared on an envelope received recently by a friend. My guess is that the sender has purchased a whole pile of mint stamps at a discount. Quite good prices are available, especially for larger denominations from commemorative issues that can only really be used on parcels or tracked services. It is a pity that they have placed items on top of the edges of the London 1980 50p and I wonder what denomination was awarded to the Northern Ireland E regional? The others add up to £2.25. It would, I think, have been £1.05 each, giving a total of £6.45 which would have been the cost of a Special Delivery up to 100g. I am not sure, though, that the envelope alone wouldn't have weighed more so who knows.
Nice to see a lovely used copy of the original £1 Machin stamp from 1969. That remains one of my favourite stamps of all time. I am a bit surprised that it was going cheap, though, as mint copies of this I would have thought would be worth more than face value.
