Jason Kenny win celebrated with Olympic Gold medal stamp

As the fifth Gold Medal stamp to be issued by Royal Mail, the stamps are now on sale in more 500 Post Offices across the UK, including one in Jason Kenny’s home town of Bolton - the Crown Post Office in Deansgate.

The branch will remain open on Sundays for the first time during the Games, so fans can celebrate Team GB’s achievements and start a unique and special London 2012 souvenir collection.

Royal Mail has also celebrated Jason’s win by painting one of its iconic red post boxes gold on Churchgate.

As soon as the team won gold, Getty Images, the official Photo Agency of the IOC, submitted a selection of the best images from that moment to the eight-strong Royal Mail design team.

The Royal Mail design team had just one hour to review all the images sent, locate the most fitting and atmospheric image, crop and refine the photo, add their names, then position within the templated design of the six-stamp miniature sheet.

On stand-by, poised to collect the completed sheets once printed, was a fleet of 90 Royal Mail vehicles ready to deliver them to more than 500 Post Offices.

Royal Mail’s post boxes are a much-loved part of the UK landscape. The UK was among the first countries to erect post boxes.

Anthony Trollope, the famous nineteenth century author and former Chief Secretary to the Postmaster General, is credited with introducing pillar boxes to the UK, having seen them in France and Belgium.

Many of the first UK post boxes were painted green to blend in with the landscape. However, to make them more visible to the public, bright red was introduced in 1874.

Red has remained the standard colour for UK boxes from then on, with few exceptions.

The gold boxes will remain in use and customers will be able to post mail in these boxes as normal. Mail collections from the boxes will also be unaffected.

The boxes will be repainted in Royal Mail's traditional red in due course.