De La Reu - Security Printers

After a little bit of digging I've managed to track down the printers that are used by the Royal Mail. De La Reu are the world leaders in security printing and they produce bank notes, passports, holograms and are pretty much the leaders at printing any document that needs to be very difficult to recreate for fraudulent activity. No wonder they are used by the Royal Mail as postage stamps have a monetary value and need to use security devices to prevent them from being duplicated illegally.

Here's the info from their Postage Stamp printing section:

'De La Rue has designed and printed postage stamps since the 19^th Century. Our first stamp, the 4d carmine, was released in 1855, and we also printed the first Post Office commemorative envelope in 1890.

We have been supplying stamps to the Royal Mail since 1966, and today the issue of Christmas stamps is one of our most important contracts within the Royal Mail range. We pioneered self-adhesive stamps, and our expertise in the gravure printing process means that De La Rue is the world leader in the design and printing of definitive special stamps, collected by philatelists the world over.

De La Rue's designers are accomplished artists, and they work closely with Postal Authorities to ensure that stamps are protected from attempts at counterfeit and fraudulent alteration, as well as accurately representing a country's symbols and appealing to the collectors market.'

The use of rotogravure printing allows them to produce large quantities because of its use of web paper on a continuous roll and the copper plate cylinders provide very accurate reproduction and little degradation - important when what you are printing is currency.

They are so accomplished at producing currency and other documents using gravure printing that they print over 150 countries currencies. They really do have a license to print money! In fact they printed themselves a Billion Pound note:

I've just emailed them asking for a sample note / stamp pack and information on their print process but I think the answer will be a polite 'no' due to their security conscious nature :)