In the absence of anything new happening on the Machin definitive front, I can bring you some more news on the Faststamp or Post and Go scene.
John G has added to the news about the on-off
Union Flags, introduced to coincide with the Rio Olympics. John was pleasantly surprised to find them already installed in the Cambridge NCR Self-service Kiosks (SSKs), and even more so when he found that they had the year code MA13, as shown here:
John also took me to task about my comment (under the earlier post) that I was "
less than enthusiastic about Post and Go these days". He writes:
"My
guess it is the Royal Mail shenanigans that have put you and lots of
others off Post and Go...", and I suppose he is correct in that. Furthermore, as mentioned in another comment on that post, which I was too busy to grasp the full significance of:
... the MA13 Union Flag stamps hadn't appeared in NCR machines before,
so there was a whole load of new material to obtain. And these are real
Post and Go items dispensed for the public to use on letters and
parcels, not the purely philatelic items dispensed by the Royal Mail
machines!
I can let you have images of various Open Value stamps - the
most widely dispensed stamps from Post Office NCR machines - if you want
to see them. These will be the items for postal history collections in the future - and very few people seem to be bothering with them!
Yes, I firmly believe in collecting modern postal history, and have most of the basic rate security
Machins on cover from all sources. I do have a small collection of Post and Go stamps, some from SSKs, but very few Open Value, and the ones that I do have, from any source are nearly all from other collectors or from dealers. I would certainly agree that to find and accumulate a comprehensive collection of 'used-on-cover' Open Values would be very worthwhile, and would definitely be a challenge.
So start looking for Open Value stamps on letters, cards and packet wrappers: I'll be happy to have scans of these to demonstrate that they do exist and have been collected - but please don't send them until November. Remember, postal history is best if it is dated, and most Post and Go/NCR stamps going through the post is not postmarked. In the Special delivery case pictured nearby, the sender is another dealer, so obtained the counter datestamp on it.
[Even collecting Faststamps from all the various Royal Mail 'event' machines would be a challenge, given that some of them have been used with no publicity, for instance at the political Party Conferences. That news doesn't appear on the Royal Mail Post and Go News webpage. I suppose the reason is that they are restricted events, but it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that one of the delegates or volunteers is a collector, or is known to collectors and could actually obtain some.]
Which brings me to other news from Royal Mail's News page.
Trafalgar Day
Royal Navy Museum (except Fleet Air Arm and Submarine) machines will carry a
‘Trafalgar Day’ additional inscription on the Union Flag design from 23 September
until 23 October 2016, when they will be replaced by....
Poppy
The Poppy design from the Symbolic Flowers Post and Go set will be
re-introduced from 24 October until 13 November 2016. The stamps will be
available from Post and Go post offices, The Postal Museum, Royal Navy and Royal Mail Enquiry
office machines.
Hibernating Animals
Hibernating Animals Post and Go stamps will be issued on 14 November
2016. There will be two designs for multi-value reels and two 2nd Class
designs. The 2nd Class designs will carry ‘2nd Class’ wording in the
background text. Stamps will be available from Post and Go post
offices as well as The Postal Museum and Enquiry Office machines.
(Pictures of these cannot be published until much nearer the time.)
You can see the rest of the stamps, and read more about the author and the stories, on our new webpage. But as for the hidden details, you will have to find out for yourself, or wait until we reveal what we have found, (long*) after the stamps are issued. (* long after, because we are not updating website or blog with these details until we have been able to see the stamps, which will be in November.)
Machins on cover from all sources. I do have a small collection of Post and Go stamps, some from SSKs, but very few Open Value, and the ones that I do have, from any source are nearly all from other collectors or from dealers. I would certainly agree that to find and accumulate a comprehensive collection of 'used-on-cover' Open Values would be very worthwhile, and would definitely be a challenge.
