UK 1971 strike mail letter from Malawi
Though I normally don’t collect “entire items” (covers, cards etc), here’s something I’ve included to my collection. It’s a 1971 cover from Malawi, addressed to United Kingdom during the 1971 postal strike. It features the 1st commonwealth approved “strike mail stamp” as well as a UK local mail delivery vignette.
Malawi 1971 30t on 3/- Special United Kingdom Delivery Service overprint with 8t Coins + red S.A.D.S label used on special delivery airmail letter to UK. In addition a 15p red Randall Postal Service vignette.
While tracking down bits and pieces for the items background, I came across with a website discussion (on BidStart) having a tidbit that only 500 flown covers with this stamp are known exist. I don’t know if the claim is true or not, as the stamp catalogues I have don’t mention anything about print or usage amounts.
At least in theory this is possible, as the usage time for these stamps was rather short. The 1971 UK postal strike began on 20th January and lasted 43 days ending with an agreement on 4th March. The overprinted Malawi stamp was issued on February 8th, making the stamps usage period only 24 days. All mail sent with the overprinted stamp had to include a red S.A.D.S label (I assume the abbreviation refers to ‘Special Air Delivery Service’, but please do correct me if I’m wrong).
And the fact that catalog values for used stamps are notably higher than mint ones, indicates that many were not used. With a bit of Googling I managed to track down 8 more or less similar covers with selling prices between 5 and 30 GBP (which seems surprisingly low if the 500 covers is true).
Anyway, not a bad find from low price job lot of odds and ends.
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And it reached Chelsea on 5th march, that is after the strike ended…
Yes, it reached Chelsea on 5th March (and moved on there to Matlock, which adds at least a 3 hour drive is Google Maps is to believe).
As for strikes end date… The deal was reached March 4th, but ‘BBC wayback machine’ says that postal workers returned to work on (monday) 8th March.
So I assume this still qualifies as “strike mail”. Those more knowledgeable about 1971 UK postal strike mail hopefully correct if I’m mistaken.