Ahead of Royal Mail's January price increase there is still news in the philatelic world.
1st class Machin Forgery - another new one
My thanks to DL for sending this picture of a 1st class Machin forgery used to post an item he bought on eBay. It's not the sort of thing likely to fool anybody, unless Royal Mail now take it on board as a new feature - but that's hardly likely given that the forgers have got there first!
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| 1st class Machin forgery with alternate lines of ROYAL MAIL mirrored |
As you can see, the top line and every alternate line has the ROYAL MAIL text shown as
There's no year code and I can't see a source code. It has the squared-off elliptical perforation, and narrow varnished 'phosphor' bands.
Post and Go news
It comes as no great surprise that the 20-coded Winter Greenery have been found (at Oakham) in the wrong machines, as illustrated here by DF. The surprise is that the explanation given was that the bulk packaging (presumably from the printer, unless PO Stores had repackaged) had the wrong labels on!
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| 2nd class Winter Greenery 2020 Post and Go stock used in 1st class machine. |
Meanwhile The Postal Museum have confirmed that, provided London is not under Tier 3 restrictions, they will be open on 1 January 2021 and it will therefore be possible to obtain their version of the Post and Go stamps with the new rates on the first day that they are applicable.
Doubtless somewhere in the country there will be franchised sub-post offices (or some ex-Crown offices outsourced to WHSmith) with NCR Self-Service Kiosks enabling collectors who want the basic stamps not subject to additional inscriptions in the new set. I wonder what will crawl out of the woodwork - surely there is not a huge stock of Birds, Fish, and Flowers held illicitly for just such an event?
Are we getting rid of P&G zones ? we are getting a new print of the Machin £2.55 but not a £2.50
ReplyDeleteI think you may have put this on the wrong post; if you look at the announcement of new Machins because of new postage rates you will see that there is no £2.50 rate after the end of the year.
DeleteI'm sure there are (the usual!) people waiting in the wings with old P&G stock and/or access to a tame machine minder. Will be interesting to see. Whilst pondering this, it struck me that you very rarely (if ever) see errors from the IAR machines (apart from the odd extra label which I've had myself) Perhaps the staff training and/or access is better controlled?
ReplyDeleteI think it's probably availability and opportunity, Trevor.
DeleteThey will certainly have had fewer variations in supplies. Military museums have been limited to Machin, Popy & Union Flag. Swindon and EARM had the railway & Shakespeare had flowers in addition to Machins.
It is likely that TPM stocks of occasional issues (when made available) have been used very quickly by the hordes of dealers descending on west London.
Strange . I thought entered below an entry below P&G concerning 01.01.21 appropriate . Zone 1 & 3 & 2 all become £2.55 whereas we currently have rates of 2.50 & 2.55.
ReplyDeleteGood morning Ian
ReplyDeleteI am surprised the forgery got through the system as it is that bad, but, having seen the very high amount of work our local sorting office is coping with over the pandemic period I suppose these will slip through.