13 October 2023
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The Royal Mail’s new Harry Potter Special Stamps showcase the Harry Potter series’ epic final battle between good and evil.
Since J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book appeared in 1997, the stories set in the wizarding school of Hogwarts built to the Battle of Hogwarts: an epic standoff between the forces of lightness and dark.
The final conflict in the Second Wizarding War was initially depicted in the seventh and final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
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In the movie adaption Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part One, Harry and his faithful comrades Ron and Hermoine set out on a mission, fraught with danger, to discover, and eliminate, the Horcruxes – the secret to Voldemort’s immortality. Part Two, which saw the conflict between escalate into full-scale warfare, featured the climactic Battle of Hogwarts.
The Battle is now the subject of a new ten set of Royal Mail Special Stamps.
With a dark tone, the focus is on the characters, both good and evil, in action, as they’re presented in the film series.
Suggesting the way the two camps of characters are waged in opposition to each other, the stamps are presented in two strips of five, each with an identifying battle colour.
The ‘Good’ strip is placed on top, demonstrating the triumph of that side over the forces of darkness.
On the Good side, the stamps (all 1st Class) are feature warlike red as the prominent colour tone and feature characters from Dumbledore’s Army and the Order of the Phoenix:
- Ron Weasley and the Weasley Twins
- Minerva McGonagall and Kingsley Shacklebolt
- Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley
- Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood
- Hermoine Granger and Molly Weasley
The stamps featured the Evil side (also 1st Class) are coloured with a poisonous shade of green and depict:
- Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy
- Fenrir Greyback and Scabior
- Lord Voldemort and A Death Eater
- Severus Snape and Alecto Carrow
- Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle.
The stamps in detail
- Number of stamps: Ten
- Value of stamps: 10 x 1st Class
- Design: True North
- Acknowledgements: WIZARDING WORLD characters, names and related indicia are © & ™ Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Publishing Rights © JKR. (s23)
- Format: Landscape
- Number per sheet: 25/50
- Size: 37mm x 35mm
- Printer: Cartor Security Printers
- Process: ithography
- Perforations: 14 x 14.5
- Phosphor bars: As appropriate
- Gum: PVA
- Stamp designs: © Royal Mail Group Ltd 2023
Harry Potter miniature sheet
After all the conflict, darkness and drama of the Harry Potter Special Stamps, the miniature sheet is a whimsical six-stamp delight that puts the focus on some of the Creatures and Beings that populate the wizarding world.
Designed and illustrated stamps of non-uniform sizes and shapes depict:
- Aragog
- the Acromantula King
- house elf Dobby
- Harry’s owl Hedwig
- Fawkes the phoenix
- Buckbeak the hippogriff
- Cruikshanks, the cat belonging to Hermione
The miniature sheet in detail
- Number of stamps: 6
- Value of stamps: 6 x 1st Class
- Design: True North
- Acknowledgements: WIZARDING WORLD characters, names and related indicia are © & ™ Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Publishing Rights © JKR. (s23)
- Size, Format (Perforations): Hedwig and Aragog: 60mm x 21mm, landscape (14.5 x 14.5); Dobby: 27mm x 37mm, portrait (14 x 14); Crookshanks and Buckbeak: 41mm x 30mm, landscape (14.5 x 14); Fawkes: 35mm x 35mm, square (14.5 x 14.5)
- Sheet size: 192mm x 74mm
- Printer: Cartor Security Printers
- Process: Lithography
- Phosphor: All over
- Gum: Self-adhesive
- Stamp designs: © Royal Mail Group Ltd 2023