Wednesday 4 April 2012

New tariff Machin Definitives to be issued 25 April

We are now able to show sheets of the new tariff stamps which will be issued on 25 April.  (Thanks for the images - you know who you are!)

These are in sheets of 25.

The left margin shows the FSC information against rows 1 and 2, the colour name against row 3, the cylinder number against row 4, and the grid position against row 5.  From this we can see that these are printed 12-up, ie 3 columns of 4 rows.  (Richard points out that anybody collecting cylinder blocks of 6 from all 12 positions will fork out over £291!  Well, if that's what floats your boat, but I can think of better things to spend that amount on.  None should be any scarcer than the others and completeness is a disease!!)

In the right margin the bar-code is against row1, the short name against row 2, and dot-matrix date and sheet number against rows 3 and 4.

Printing dates seen so far are:

87p   - 08/02/12
£1.28 - 08/02/12
£1.90 - 10/02/12

... which suggests that some printing was probably also done on Thursday 9th February.




5 comments:

  1. Welcome back Ian. Any news on the 50p rust?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nothing yet. I suspect that with these, the 1st Large DJ and the Pigs (due the day before these) there is no chance to get the 50p rust on the FDCs and in the presentation packs and out for general distribution.

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    2. Will the phosphor on the 50p fool the sorting machines into thinking its good for first class postage?

      Delete
  2. Ian, it would appear that Royal Mail were aware of the new rates long before they were approved by OFCOM? Surely they would not chance their arm and print these values/colours in early February unless they were fairly certain they would be used?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @UncleKev
      I've been looking for references but can't locate them, but I don't think Ofcom regulate the airmail rates. There doesn't seem to be anything on their website to confirm this and so it was probably on Postcomm's site that I found it originally.

      Delete

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