Tuesday 18 December 2012

Late printing for old 10p Machin stamp

Just a week before De La Rue were printing the new low value Machin stamps with iridescent overprint they were still printing the old ones!

We have been shown the 10p with a printing date of 06/09/12. The new stamps have been seen with printing dates of -

2p & 5p     12/09/12
10p & 20p 13/09/12


4 comments:

  1. Bit of a naive question this but can you actual tell the difference between the actual stamps printed on different dates? Is this a major source of variations such as shades etc. Graham

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not a naive question at all - and there is no such thing as a daft question, as we all learn something, even having to check the answer.

    In this case there is unlikely to be any appreciable difference between this and other printings, not one that can be noticed on a single stamp. The same ink should be used, and the plate/cylinder is unchanged. Even when a new cylinder is used it is often the same ink and single stamps are difficult to tell apart.

    However there have been situations in the past when a reprint occurs in a totally different shade for some reason (maybe the ink tank wasn't properly cleaned out and the correctly coloured and made up ink was contaminated by what was previously on the press).

    Beware of apparently different shades on websites etc caused by the material being scanned at different times. For comparisons the stamps should be scanned side-by-side in one pass.

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  3. Thanks Ian. I had this line of thought with the different printings and reissues of the religious Christmas stamps over the past few years. I wrote to the Phil Bulletin about this and they told me that there was was no difference and the stamps were just a reissue. The point then being it was not worth collecting the reissues. I suppose that would be the same in trying to collect definitives with different printing dates. Dare I say it but the RM miss a marketing opportunity here. I am sure any anouncments of new prints would be collected by someone! Graham

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If the new dates are available from Tallents House we can supply date blocks, date pairs etc, as we can also supply cylinder blocks as available.

      If a particular date doesn't reach Tallents House (although all should) then we can only supply if we find it!

      Different dates of the Christmas stamps have not been made available by Tallents House. If you wish to discuss individual requirements, please email ian@norphil.co.uk rather than publicly.

      Delete

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