Monday 29 April 2019

SG Catalogue editor revises more numbers, and not finished yet!

Over the weekend a customer asked me for help in identifying a 1st class red/vermillion/scarlet stamp from a prestige stamp book.  As it happens the May edition of Gibbons Stamp Monthly is on my desk, so I consulted that as well as our own checklist.  And found a surprise!

When the 2018 Concise Catalogue was produced there was a major overhaul of numbering of the security Machins.  But even with those changes I feared that they had not left sufficient gaps to accommodate the higher value stamps which were bound to appear.  And so it turns out.  All gummed (ex-PSB) stamps above £1.25 (SG3089) have been renumbered, which consequently requires the revision of the numbers for the litho-printed NVI stamps (previously U3095-8).

The Marvel Comics PSB stamps are not included in the catalogue listing, but are mentioned in John Deering's Machin Watch column, so I can provide all the details here in a variation of our Checklist.

There are also changes to listings for the complicated 5p values.
The stamp from DY8, the Merchant Navy PSB, which has the eliptical perforations near the top of the sides rather than near the foot, is listed as U3072d - but it's original listing of U3073 is retained.

The associated pane, U3073l, is not listed with U3072d.

The number U3072d is also retained by a pane, but the contents have been 'rewritten'.  They were U3072, 3074 and 3083 but are now shown as U3012, 3013 & 3021b which is a total nonsense. The pane is from the Beatrix Potter PSB, DY19.

The stamp from DY13, the 2015 Great War PSB, which shade is identified by Gibbons as deep red-brown rather than red-brown, is changed from U3072c to U3072a.

That from DY25, the RAF Centenary PSB with source code M IL instead of MPIL, is changed from U3072f to U3072b.  There is no U3072c unless that is the correct number for the Merchant Navy stamp.

Other changes:
1p - Marvel PSB single is U3070a as it is M IL.
2p - U3071d changes to U3071a, this is the RAF M IL stamp.
50p - U3077 Gibbons have changed their colour description from slate-blue to slate; the less-blue shade in the Harry Potter PSB is U3077a and is described as grey.

I can see what they have tried to do: the variants are now all numbered with a,b,c, etc codes to keep them all near the start of the listing.  The panes are now all listed separately from l,m,n etc as they are in pre-security listings.

I have written to Gibbons pointing out the errors in the latest listing in GSM and hope that they will publish a better listing in the next edition.  Meanwhile the next edition of our Checklist will await this clarification.


Stamps with ordinary gum






Value and colour
Year
Source Code
Year code
Issue Date or EKD§
SG GB Concise 2018
SG No
GSM
May 2918
Norvic Number
Comment
(incl first printing date)

2nd class blue
2015
MPIL
M15L
17/12/15
U3095
U3150
2901P.5
DY15 Star Wars PSB

2017
|
M17L
14/12/17
|
|
2901P.7
DY23 Star Wars PSB
1st class gold
2011
MPIL
M11L
09/09/11
U3096
U3155
3701.1
DY2 Aerial Post
1st class red (SG=vermillion)
2013
MPIL
M13L
09/05/13
U3097
U3156
3702P
DY7 Football PS

2015
MPIL
M15L
17/12/15
|
|
3702P.5
DY15 Star Wars PSB

2016
|
M16L
21/04/16
|
|
3702P.6
DY17 Queens 90th PSB

2017
|
M17L
05/06/17
U3067
|
3702P.7
DY21 Machin Ann: Grv

|
|
|
14/12/17
U3097
|
3702P.7a
DY23 Star Wars: Litho
(prev listed as deep scarlet)
2018
|
M18L
13/09/18
U3098
U3156
3702P.8
DY26 World War I §§
1st deep scarlet (SG=bright scarlet)
2017
MPIL
M16L
15/02/17
U3098
U3157
3702aP.6
DY20 Windsor Castle



§§ 3702aP.8 is renumbered as 3702P.8 with the colour confirmed as red/vermillion
£1.25 green
2018
MPIL
M18L
04/12/18
U3084 
in suppt.
U3089
4125P.8
DY26 Harry Potter PSB
£1.25 light green
|
M IL
|
14/03/19
?
U3089a
4125Pa.8
DY29 Marvel Comics
£1.33 orge-yell
2015
MPIL
M15L
14/05/15
U3085
U3094
4133P.5
DY13 Great War 15
£1.40 grey-green
2017
MPIL
M17L
14/12/17
U3086
U3099
4140P.7
DY23 Star Wars PSB
£1.45 dove grey
2018
M IL
M18L
14/03/19
?
U3104
4145P.8
DY29 Marvel Comics
£1.55 turq-blue
2018
MPIL
M18L
13/02/19
U3087?
U3109
4155P.8
DY28 da Vinci PSB

The £1.25 doesn't even appear in the 2018 Concise and was numbered U3084b in a GSM supplement. This is now U3089 from the Harry Potter PSB, and U3089a from the Marvel PSB (M IL); this is also deemed to be a different shade. 


3 comments:

  1. Nice work Ian. I too find the 5p Lithos numbering somewhat strange. Given that for any particular type/value, the first level of SG numbering seems to be determined by colour, I would have thought the logical numbering for these under the current revised listings should be:
    U3073 5p Red-brown ‘ellipse at top’ ex DY08 would become U3072a
    U3072b 5p Red-brown ‘missing ‘P’ ex DY25 remains as U3072b
    U3072a 5p Deep red-brown ex DY13 would become U3073.
    I’m beginning to lose a bit of confidence in SG’s quality control checking. In December 2018 I wrote to SG regarding listings in GSM for January 2019 (Volume 49 No. 8). The two self-adhesive Poppy stamps from the WW1 booklet (September 2018) were given Catalogue Numbers SG4116 and SG4117, but these numbers had already been allocated to the Hampton Court booklet stamps from July 2018. I suggested their correct listings should be SG4139 and 4140. Got no reply.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Regarding the two entries for U3072d: I think they are "printer's devils" and should be ignored completely. The items they refer to are also listed elsewhere. It looks to me as if someone at SG was careless with the "cut-and-paste".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gibbons have confirmed that U3072d is an error and this 5p stamp from Merchant Navy remains 3073, I'll make more changes to the blog when I have studied their email in full.

      Delete

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