Slogan Postmarks
Martin reported that these slogan postmarks would be in use last week:
1. Queen's Award on Monday 20 April, on iLSMs and IMPs.
(UPDATE: John E writes: "slogan does not appear to have been used by IMPs on 20 April - only by iLSMs - despite the expectation it would be used on both.")
Adrian sent this example from Peterborough:
2. St George's Day on Wednesday 22 April, on IMPs only, and possibly only on mail addressed to English addresses.
Thanks to John I can show these examples from Swansea and Preston. John writes: "The slogan was used on 22 April by IMPs, only on mail to addresses in England - but this did include use by IMPs in Wales!", these using the English inscription.
The surprise is that this slogan was applied to 2nd class mail on 22nd, even though there would be no expectation of it being delivered on 23rd. It would not have been surprising to have it used on 2nd class mail on 21st, and 1st class mail on 22nd.
3. Anthony Trollope from Thursday 23 April until 1 May, on iLSMs and IMPs
I received these in my own post, one type from Bristol Mail Centre and the other from Peterborough both on 23 April:
Post and Go
Malcolm sent a photo of the Fleet Air Arm Museum Post and Go machine A003 which now correctly identifies the Museum (with it's harrier logo) on the screen. No word yet on when the harrier will appear on the stamps.
The chaos of Post and Go at the 86th Scottish Philatelic Congress continued. Several people reported the omission of the year on the Machin and Flag stamps produced to pre-order on the 'back-office' machine B001 in Bristol. Jersey Post's machine also produced stamps without 2015.
In Perth, the stamps from machines A006 and A008 did show the year, but receipts from machine A008 initially showed this as the 85th Congress! This was updated later on day 1.
After the debacle at Spring Stampex 2014 which included almost every conceivable type of error we were assured by Royal Mail that they would stress to the contractor the need for better quality control to ensure that such errors were fewer in future. Of course operationally - to the extent that the stamps are used for postage - the errors do not matter to Royal Mail. But RoyalMail are aware that the unintentional variations do reflect badly on them, with people suggesting that they are intentionally made to fleece collectors. They are also aware of comments made by both collectors and dealers - and also recognise that with every such situation there are some collectors who decide not to continue with their Post and Go collections, so reducing revenue.
Banbury Trials
John E was able to obtain some samples of the handstamps used in trials at Banbury as part of the revenue protection exercise on uncancelled mail. As John wrote,"A shame that the 'Banbury Cross' will not be used generally!"The three show Large Wavy Lines with Maltese Cross, same but smaller, and wavy lines with no cross.
Machin definitives
John F reports another new printing date for the £1 M15L sheet stamp - 22/01/15.
This is in addition to the already reported 13/01/15 and 09/03/15.
Details of Gibraltar’s machine have appeared on the Europhilex exhibition page of the IAR website, as well as details of what will have an additional inscriptions. Let’s hope there communication between the parties as to whether GI01 will or will not have the overprint and it won’t be a repeat of Guernsey’s P&G debut at Stampex.
ReplyDeleteI am told that the harrier logo will appear at the same time as the VE day overprint
ReplyDelete