As you know, the low value Machin definitives were issued on 8 March this year, but they will not appear in post office branches until stocks of gummed stamps are exhausted. And when will this be?
A recent delivery of the 1p stamp to a local post office was of 11 year old stamps! Yes, these were printed in January and June 2000. It's not a misprint, because the dot-matrix printing spans the half-way position of the sheet - specialist collectors will recall that after complaints that dot-blocks from post offices were always creased, Royal Mail arranged for the printing date and sheet number to be moved to the lower half of the sheet. Keep your eyes open for other old stock appearing; for 1st & 2nd class Country stamps that could even mean different varieties, as well as unreported printing dates.
My latest post from Northern Ireland was stamped with a 2nd class 2009 security stamp from a book of 12 (code MTIL). Now it could be that the sender had kept the stamps for a while, or it could mean that some parts of the UK have still not taken delivery of 2010 versions! Keep watch on the incoming mail as well as Post Office stocks.
Let us know what you find - leave a comment.
This should be the last post for a week, unless No 2 reporter finds anything, as I'm moving from the far East (Norfolk) to the far West (Tywyn area). Comments will not be moderated until my return.
A recent delivery of the 1p stamp to a local post office was of 11 year old stamps! Yes, these were printed in January and June 2000. It's not a misprint, because the dot-matrix printing spans the half-way position of the sheet - specialist collectors will recall that after complaints that dot-blocks from post offices were always creased, Royal Mail arranged for the printing date and sheet number to be moved to the lower half of the sheet. Keep your eyes open for other old stock appearing; for 1st & 2nd class Country stamps that could even mean different varieties, as well as unreported printing dates.
My latest post from Northern Ireland was stamped with a 2nd class 2009 security stamp from a book of 12 (code MTIL). Now it could be that the sender had kept the stamps for a while, or it could mean that some parts of the UK have still not taken delivery of 2010 versions! Keep watch on the incoming mail as well as Post Office stocks.
Let us know what you find - leave a comment.
This should be the last post for a week, unless No 2 reporter finds anything, as I'm moving from the far East (Norfolk) to the far West (Tywyn area). Comments will not be moderated until my return.
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