Friday 8 March 2019

Bizarre Post and Go error.

As you know there is not much to report about Post and Go since Royal Mail stopped issuing new designs ("saving collectors money"), although machines continue to be used widely in many post office branches.

With little going on technically, by way of inscription changes, you would think that technological problems would have been a thing of the past, but Mike C has sent this image of a great little error which occurred at Bury St Edmunds.


Mike writes:
Two machines had 1st Poppies & the third had Machin head; one had GoT 2nd & the other two Machin head.  The kiosk I used produced the Collectors sets as shown on the attached image (Poppy MA16, 2nd CL16)! When I saw the 'error', I immediately did another transaction but, to minimise potential wasted expenditure, I just asked for 3 x the 'Euro 20g/World 10g' value and they all appeared correctly.

It's a measure of the reduced interest in P&G that when I was in Bury St Edmunds two weeks ago I totally forgot that the PO had P&G machines; I found the Saturday market much more interesting!  Mike's example is obviously a software problem, coming in the middle of a strip.  I wonder if it has occurred anywhere else?

From the comments:
First noted at Tunbridge Well in April 2015 when they has the Working Sail, MA14 Poppy and the Machin with 2014 imprint date. Portsmouth had it at the same time with Working Sail.

This issue can affects all values in the strip bit you only get one shift per strip of six. If you buy 36 stamps in one transaction, you will end up with a shift for each value.
And BM has sent these, including the MA14 Poppy bought in April 2015:



Update 6 November 2019:
Thanks to DP we can show that this buffering problem is continuing, with this example from Saltash recently.




4 comments:

  1. Most SSKs have had this issue

    First noted at Tunbridge Well in April 2015 when they has the Working Sail, MA14 Poppy and the Machin with 2014 imprint date. Portsmouth had it at the same time with Working Sail.

    This issue can affects all values in the strip bit you only get one shift per strip of six. If you buy 36 stamps in one transaction, you will end up with a shift for each value.

    This problem is indiscriminate and just because it happened on one transaction it won’t necessarily occur on the next.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not true most have had this issue, it is not that common and is to do with buffering. 2 Shifts can happen on a strip of 6 though very very rarely.
    It is true it is indiscriminate and it may not happen for the next few purchases. I have never known this happen buying just 1 stamp maybe because that does not need buffering.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Went to the East Anglia Railway Mussum today only to be told A005 'hasn't worked for mmonths'. The lady on the front desk said she thought that it was going to be removed by RM as no one was using it when it was working! Always seemed a bit of a strange place to put it, somewhere with more footfall like the LT Museum or Science Museum perhaps and where tourists would send cards from!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now removed and relocated to Mail Rail at the Postal Museum.

      Delete

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