Monday 12 March 2012

High prices on eBay for scarce Machin 2nd class coil stamp

The (in)famous Sunday Times Wine Club stamp, the 2nd class self-adhesive coil from the 2010 printing, has recently made a couple of appearances on online auction site eBay.

The first sale, which was for the whole mailshot, complete envelope and contents, sold for what many thought at the time was a too-low price of £56.  Now a single example from kiloware has been chased up to £113 by 6 bidders, and another has just started.  This doesn't have quite the same spray-on postmark as the STWC one so may be from another mailer.  I've been sent a picture of some other examples from kiloware, and while it isn't possible to confirm from the picture that they are all MA10/MRIL I have no reason to believe they are not:


Remember if you see one offered for sale, or find one yourself, that if there are no security slits, this is from the gummed coil, not the self-adhesive.  The perforations on vertical sides will be cut, and probably short; those at the top and bottom may be guillotined or torn.



5 comments:

  1. What is your best estimate of the number of MA10/MRIL 2nd class coil stamps that are currently known? I make it that 12 have been sold on Ebay in the last month or so (plus two that goofbay tells us were sold to underbidders, making it 14 sold on Ebay), and there are currently 4 on Ebay. Some of your those may have been in your earlier count, but should we now put the number with collectors at about 30, with every chance of going up given the recent spate of these?
    Cheers
    Daniel

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    Replies
    1. Hi Daniel,

      Thanks for the comment. To be honest there are so many on eBay - and I haven't seen them all by any means - that the number ought to be around 40 by now. I know somebody who has found 6 or 7 in kiloware, and others have reported finding them in 2 or 3.

      There are certainly mailing houses for other than the STWC so the probability of finding more makes the idea of paying over £50 seem slightly odd. Yes there are very many collectors out there, but the supply is not small unlike, for example, the Birds 1 Faststamps 40g rate from Cambridge.

      Delete
  2. Hi.

    I have finally managed to get a copy of the MA10 MRIL SA stamp, a very nice copy almost identical to the stamp at the top left of your image. I am puzzled though in that it is clearly clipped from a postcard, as seems to be the case with your top left copy. Have any other sources of this stamp been identified yet?

    Regards
    Mike

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  3. I know this is an old post Ian but I would like to warn yourself and readers of your blog that some stamps have appeared on eBay of late claiming to be these, but they are in fact the gummed ones from a roll identifiable by the raggy perfs top and bottom and lack of security slits. BEWARE!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you - did you alert the seller? Whether or not, please let me have item numbers by email, and I'll check them out.

      Delete

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