So many stamps were produced in the Millennium series of 1999-2000 that collectors were overwhelmed – and perhaps irritated.
As a result, some wonderful designs have gone largely ignored.
The dominant stamp in the military set, entitled The Soldiers’ Tale, was the 19p depicting Robert the Bruce, but the striking 26p devoted to the English Civil War is a hidden gem, requiring more careful study to appreciate its intricacies.
The British Humanitarians issue on March 15 will commemorate the lives and achievements of six individuals who devoted their energies to helping and protecting other people, both in the UK and abroad.
The three men and three women, active in the 19th and 20th centuries, shared an innate concern for their fellow human beings struggling against illness, poverty, violence or hypocrisy, and a single-minded desire to help them in practical ways.
Unusually, the issue appears to be an example of people power heavily influencing Royal Mail’s stamp programme.
One of David Gentleman’s best pieces of design was the set of four honouring champions of reform in the spheres of factory exploitation, child labour, trade unionism and prison conditions.
Dark-hued and bleak, and cleverly showing hands set in very adverse situations, each stamp sums up in an instant what the problem was.
The 11p value highlights the cruel Victorian use of child chimney sweeps, evoking the soot-polluted environment of narrow, jagged, crumbling brickwork through which small boys were forced to crawl.
Fittingly, in a set which was issued expressly to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Trust for Scotland, the most evocative design is one of the two showing Scottish views.
Capturing the sunlight streaming down onto Loch Shiel, it highlights the desolate beauty of Glenfinnan, and the 60ft monument of a clansman which was raised in 1815 by Alexander MacDonald of Glenaladale to commemorate the start of the fateful last Jacobite rising in 1745.
Industry Year was a campaign by the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce) to promote and explain industry to the community.
Of the four stamps with a similar design concept, it’s the 34p that catches the eye.
It stars a mouth-watering loaf of crusty bread, well lit against a background of a vast field of corn, under blue skies.
The 1980 set was among the most elegant of all Christmas issues, and the star of the group of five was the highest value, depicting a display of satin brocade and shining pendants with holly.
The arc of decorated foliage and the complete symmetry of the design suggest security and a welcoming door, beyond which are to be found many treats of the traditional British festive season.
With its deceptively simple design of green and red on white, this stamp epitomises Christmas, and has a very large ‘wow factor’.
Available from counter sheets and miniature sheets, this set celebrating the 150th anniversary of the double-decker looks most striking in the former guise.
That’s because it comes in a se-tenant strip of five illustrating 16 buses, parked in a row as if lined up in a bus garage.
But of course you wouldn’t get so much historical variety in any normal bus garage.
Royal Mail’s 2016 celebrations marking the 500th anniversary of operating an organised postal service will get underway with a stamp issue on February 17.
Entitled Royal Mail 500, the issue comprises a set of six individual stamps giving a flavour of how a formal postal network was established and expanded, plus a four-stamp Classic GPO Posters miniature sheet reproducing advertising posters of the mid-20th century.
Royal Mail says it has chosen to celebrate its big anniversary this year because the importance of the office of Master of the Posts was recognised when its first holder, Brian Tuke, was knighted by King Henry VIII in 1516.
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur Sullivan, the riot of fun and nonsense that epitomises Gilbert & Sullivan operas was brilliantly captured in a set of five stamps.
Most colourful of all is the 28p value for The Mikado, arguably the greatest and certainly the most popular of the Savoy operas.
It depicts Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner of Japan, in his ceremonial costume adorned with axe logos, holding the large axe which he has never used! Knowing touches are the tilting of Ko-Ko’s head and the partial obscuring of his face with a fan, which allude to his cunning duplicity.
Few stamps issued by Royal Mail have more action realised in their design than this one, honouring the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the importance of international flag signals.
The emergency launch of an Oakley-class lifeboat into a dark and stormy sea is brilliantly captured, with waves breaking over the bow as it hurtles down its slipway towards a brilliant flare fired by a yacht in distress.
At the stern, crew members cling on in anticipation of a rough ride, while the flag signals and pennants at the bottom right give the RNLI’s initials and the year of the issue.
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