In July we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the literary merchandising wonder that is Discworld Stamps. An absolute phenomenon from the very beginning, something about these miniature artworks from another world and another time have grown beyond all expectations.
Twenty years.
Twenty bloody years of little, illustrated, beautifully crafted bits of gummy paper!
It would be utterly unfathomable to us, back in 2004, that a small range of novelty stamps would grow to encompass hundreds of designs, a community of thousands of collectors and millions upon millions of stamps . . . or that people’s love of storytelling, collecting, and of course for Sir Terry would mean that we would still be in the enviable position of bringing his work to life in such an unlikely fashion two decades later!
We love Discworld Stamps, as much for the sheer absurdity of their existence as for the creative challenge of bringing Terry’s books to life in such a unique way, so as long as our collectors still enjoy our work on them, we’d like to continue producing them. However, with life and its events in constant flux there does, inevitably, have to come a time for change . . .
For twenty years there have been new stamps and LBEs almost every month. This has meant monthly design, production and release deadlines for every issue, which would be a challenge for any design house! As much as we enjoy producing the stamps, we really don’t want to tread over old ground for the sake of it. Equally, we don’t want our supporters to feel that we’re just churning stuff out for the heck of it – that’s neither fun nor fair for us or our collectors. We are also very much aware that times are harder and folks have fewer coins to spend nowadays, and demands on our time have increased considerably both at home and from our other Emporium duties and projects.
Believe it or not, Discworld Stamps are quite labour intensive. From designing stamps, sheets, LBE labels and LBE picking lists, to perforating upwards of a thousand sheets, ripping them by hand, filling hundreds of LBEs and administering season tickets . . . a lot of time is required prepare for a stamp release every month. We also need time to produce our other growing range of wares, be they sculpture, puzzle, T-shirt, print or book, and to attend to our ever-expanding global customer base. With the best will to produce the best Discworld merchandise in the world, we are a very small team, and our resources only stretch so far. As we continue to grow, we don’t want Discworld Stamps to feel like a chore, nor do we want to have to try and ‘fit them in’ when we can. It would be a disservice to some of our most loyal collectors and friends to allow this to happen.
With all that in mind, after much consideration, we’ve taken the decision to slow things down so that we can ALL relax a little. We’re drawing a line under the structure of the past 20 years, and from heron-in will begin to treat the stamps as we do our other projects. When we think an idea or design is special enough, we will produce it.
What does this mean for collectors? Firstly, your wallets and purses can sigh in relief . . . we will likely be cutting down a little on our output. We will still be releasing LBEs as and when we feel they are appropriate, but we may intersperse them with other stampy delights! Without pressing monthly deadlines, we hope to dedicate our attention areas of postal ephemera that have been neglected during these pressing times; we’d like to produce more postal artefacts – telling stories through letters, parcels, presentation sheets, covers and the like. We would like to celebrate some of the Discworld themes that don’t lend themselves our current structure. In short, we’d like to focus more on the design then the deadline. We sincerely hope we can continue to meet your expectations and of course we will still honour the old traditions of Hogswatch releases and Definitives, but we’d like to get back to doing some things which are a little less ‘expected’. We genuinely think this will lead to a more vibrant and varied collection over all.
What does this REALLY mean for collectors? The monthly output has been driven, largely by LBEs. We need to ensure that we have enough rotation of designs to fill the LBEs with a suitable mix. So for example, if we want to produce a big shiny stamp at £1, we need to follow this up by some smaller cheaper stamps to make sure that LBEs will contain an average of 10 stamps, which when combined can still make sure each person still gets a minimum of a fiver’s worth of stamps. If, however, we can make a few stamps as we see fit, and then decide it’s time for an LBE, we can possibly include a few new designs into one LBE issue!
You may have noticed that the LBE Season Ticket scheme was suspended in February. This is because most current season ticket sold limits any changes we make to LBEs for the next 11 issues. For example, we couldn’t produce a special bumper LBE edition with £10 worth of stamps because we’ve already pre-sold season ticket issues at £5. If we wanted to produce sheets and covers for a few months, we’d be delaying people getting LBEs that they’d already paid for, and with much fewer LBEs being released and the events that once caused buying frenzies and instant sell-outs being a thing of the past, the season ticket’s purpose is now somewhat negated. With this in mind, we won’t be reintroducing season tickets for the foreseeable future.
LBE season tickets were introduced, largely, to make sure people didn’t miss out on limited edition LBEs. While we haven’t produced a limited edition for a few years, we are mindful that a couple of issues have sold out swiftly and we will certainly take this into account when planning our releases. We’d rather over stock and be left with excess stock than upset our collectors. With greater flexibility we can plan our time around those releases that are likely to sell fast, meaning that if we plan to release a Hogswatch LBE in October, we may choose to release a sheet set in September to allow more time to create enough stock to mitigate against an instant sellout in October.
What about those with existing season tickets that are still running? We will, of course, honour them no matter what. We will continue to fill existing season ticket slots with each new LBE released in the short term, once we have a feel for the new system. If we don’t feel it’s working well for anyone, we will be putting forward a few options for those few remaining season ticket holders which we already have planned out.
So, with all that said… we’re excited to get back to the drawing board to create some truly ‘first class’ stamps and ephemera for you all!
