William wrote:

UK postage stamps each now have a unique "barcode" built into them

The codes are unique for each stamp value. They would soon run out of codes if they were unique to each stamp.

If not unique, I wonder if at sometime someone will be accused of trying to use a previously used stamp when they have not!

William wrote:

Please imagine three Euler circles.

Thanks for the suggestion, William, but there’s no need now. I edited my post after I found the answer on the Royal Mail website, but (as on most forums) you only get notifications for new posts, not for edits.

Oh I had seen the edit, but I replied for completeness and some other readers might be interested.

By the way, are they actually barcodes? Are barcodes only linear with .. um ... bars?

Do you remember Laaamb ?

Nooo.

Please imagine three Euler circles.

Thanks for the suggestion, William, but there’s no need now. I edited my post after I found the answer on the Royal Mail website, but (as on most forums) you only get notifications for new posts, not for edits.

William wrote:

most (all but special issues except Christmas stamps) UK postage stamps

I’m afraid I’m having difficulty untangling “all but … except” to determine the intended meaning.

Please imagine three Euler circles.

A large one for All present years UK postage stamps

A medium one that is entirely within that one for All special issue stamps

A small one that is entirely within that one for All Christmas stamps

Then the stamps without the so-called barcodes are the ones in the ring doughnut area of the Euler diagram.

All of the other stamps within the largest of these Euler circles do have these so-called barcodes.

UK postage stamps each now have a unique "barcode" built into them

The codes are unique for each stamp value. They would soon run out of codes if they were unique to each stamp.

The barcodes provide access to exclusive video content. The first of these videos featured Shaun the sheep and his four-legged friends, so I suppose the code for that one could reasonably have been called a “baacode”!

most (all but special issues except Christmas stamps) UK postage stamps

I’m afraid I’m having difficulty untangling “all but … except” to determine the intended meaning.

Edit: Never mind, I’ve found this explanation of how different kinds of stamps are treated:

Source: https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps

No. It would have been "tuppence", not "two pence". I think a tuppenny stamp was only used on cheques and receipts.

As in ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’:

Half a pound of twopenny rice
Half a pound of treacle
That’s the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel

I’ve see it written both ways, but I don’t recall ever seeing Bertolt Brecht’s play The Threepenny Opera referred to with ‘Threepenny’ spelled as ‘Thrupenny’, despite its being pronounced that way.

My spoll chacker marks both ‘Thrupenny’ and ‘Thruppenny’ as misspelled. However, ‘tuppence’ is accepted.

The requirement was abolished at, or maybe in preparation for, decimalisation of the currency. Decimalisation took place in 1971.

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hans … uty-refund

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.p … c=660761.0

like a postage stamp, but a different colour

Stamps at that time bore the words "Postage" and "Revenue". The same stamp was used.