Father Stampmas: How on Earth was this design accepted as genuine? (Picture: SWNS)

A man has claimed to have sent letters around the world for free after designing his own bizarre stamps that feature his own face in a variety of wacky disguises.

Angus McDonagh, a self-proclaimed ‘anarchist philatelist’, said he begun making his own stamps and even franking them amid what he saw as bland stamp design.

‘When I started I wanted them to be deliberately silly, so I had a fake moustache or beard or eye patch, that was very obviously drawn on very crudely,’ the 64-year-old said.

The designs have seen Angus McDonagh send post for free for years (Picture: SWNS)

‘I started it as a bit of a protest. It seemed as if stamps were disappearing due to everyone going online all the time.’




Mr McDonagh, of Bridgwater, Somerset, said: ‘The Queen’s head, it seemed to me, was going to disappear from stamps and be replaced with lots of other images and I felt I had to act.

‘I just kept going and it has become more and more farcical. It’s gone undetected for so long now it is just silly.’

Angus McDonagh said he started his own stamps to protest at the rise of email. We’re not sure either (Picture: SWNS)

Mr McDonagh said he has produced around 50 individual stamp designs featuring him wearing Father Christmas beards, berets and eye patches, some of which even commemorate imagined occasions such as Upside Down Day.

After sending 100 letters as far afield as Australia, he said only one was returned after being exposed as false.

Royal Mail insisted it was a crime to create or use counterfeit stamps. ‘We will take the necessary steps to protect the integrity of stamps on behalf of the 29million households and businesses we are honoured to serve,’ a spokesperson said.