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Royal Mail Adds Digital Touch to Traditional Stamps

A Royal Mail delivery vehicle drives along a road near Mount Pleasant, in London, Britain, June 25, 2020. Picture taken June 25, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley/File Photo
A Royal Mail delivery vehicle drives along a road near Mount Pleasant, in London, Britain, June 25, 2020. Picture taken June 25, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley/File Photo
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Royal Mail Adds Digital Touch to Traditional Stamps

A Royal Mail delivery vehicle drives along a road near Mount Pleasant, in London, Britain, June 25, 2020. Picture taken June 25, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley/File Photo
A Royal Mail delivery vehicle drives along a road near Mount Pleasant, in London, Britain, June 25, 2020. Picture taken June 25, 2020. REUTERS/John Sibley/File Photo

Royal Mail is adding special barcodes to stamps, making it possible for people to watch videos, messages and other information, The Guardian reported.

The move from Tuesday follows a successful trial, with the aim of connecting a letter with the digital world.

Customers can scan the barcodes in the Royal Mail app and will eventually be able to watch videos, information about services, or birthday messages and other greetings from senders.

At the moment, a video featuring Shaun the Sheep, created exclusively for Royal Mail by the animation studio Aardman, can be viewed.

It is the first in a series of planned videos to be released during 2022 that will allow customers sending stamped mail to choose which one the recipient can see when they receive an item of mail. The barcoded stamps will have a “digital twin” and the two will be connected by the Royal Mail app. The barcodes match the stamp color and sit alongside the main body of the stamp, separated by a simulated perforation line.

The barcodes will be available on “definitive” stamps – the regular everyday stamps featuring the profile of the Queen.

Non-barcoded definitive and Christmas stamps will remain valid until January 2023.

Nick Landon, Royal Mail chief commercial officer, said: “Introducing unique barcodes on our postage stamps allows us to connect the physical letter with the digital world and opens up the possibilities for a range of new innovative services in future.”

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Tourist Coins Pose Giant Problem at N. Ireland's Famous Causeway Site

Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
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Tourist Coins Pose Giant Problem at N. Ireland's Famous Causeway Site

Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)

Northern Ireland's Giant Causeway draws close to one million visitors a year but their habit of wedging tiny coins in cracks between the rocks -- to bring love or luck -- is damaging the world-famous wonder.

Now authorities are urging tourists to keep their coins in their pockets to preserve the spectacular landscape.

Some 40,000 columns mark the causeway, Northern Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Geologists say the natural phenomenon was created by an outpouring of basalt lava 60 million years ago.

Legend has it that the causeway was formed by Irish giant Finn McCool.

In recent decades, visitors have pushed thousands of coins into fissures in the rocks.

The gesture is "a token of love or luck", according to Cliff Henry, the causeway's nature engagement officer.

But the coins rapidly corrode and expand, causing the basalt to flake and leaving "unsightly" rust-colored streaks, Henry told AFP.

He pointed to streaks on a rock and gingerly prized out a US cent with a set of keys.

"We get a lot of euros and dollar cents. But coins from literally all over the world -- any currency you can think of, pretty much -- we have had it here," he said.

A report by the British Geological Survey in 2021 revealed that the coins were "doing some serious damage" and something had to be done about it, he noted.

Signs are now in place around the site appealing to tourists to "leave no trace".
"Once some visitors see other people have done it, they feel that they need to add to it," causeway tour guide Joan Kennedy told AFP.

She and her colleagues now gently but firmly tell tourists to desist.

At the exit from the causeway, a US couple said they were "distressed" to hear of the damage the metal caused.

"Our guide mentioned as we came up that people had been putting coins into the stones. It's really terrible to hear that," said Robert Lewis, a 75-year-old from Florida.

"It's kind of like damaging any kind of nature when you are doing something like that, putting something foreign into nature. It's not good," said his wife, Geri, 70.

As part of a £30,000 ($40,000) conservation project, stone masons recently removed as many coins as they could -- without causing further damage -- from 10 test sites around the causeway.

Henry said the trial was successful and is to be expanded across the causeway.

"If we can get all those coins removed to start with that will help the situation and hopefully no more coins will be put in," he said.

"If visitors see fewer coins in the stones and hear appeals to stop the damaging practice, the problem can maybe be solved.

"We know that visitors love and cherish the Giant's Causeway, and many form deep personal connections to it, so we want this natural wonder to remain special for future generations."