Mystery booklet has collectors baffled!

It's not often these days that the philatelic community finds something modern which nobody has seen before.  Yes, a collector did find a new 2019 printing of the 2nd class Scotland stamp last year, but....

The latest discovery is in a different league entirely.  It is is a booklet which has almost certainly never seen a post office, so most dealers and collectors would not have seen it in the normal course of events.

The story behind it is confused, but I'll start with the pictures:

Outside cover

Outside cover of mystery stamp booklet

 Inside

Advertising slogan on inside front cover.

The stamps are clearly MSIL as they should be, and M14L indicating a 2014 year of production.

Investigating the elements.

The inside cover. The quote is from Nik Roope who was creative partner at Poke which he co-founded.  After the merger in early 2019 between Poke, Publicis London and Arc, he became creative chairman at Publicis.Poke.  He left the group in August.   (He's the one wearing the glasses in the photo.)

The outer cover. The source of the image appears to be a Royal Mail direct mail cmapaign, orchestrated by Publicis Chemistry according to an article in The Guardian in 2015, written by David Prideaux, executive creative director at Publicis.

We took the Royal Mail logo off the ads so there would be no negative associations whatsoever and replaced it with MailMen. We wanted our campaign to have a rallying cry, this set a playful tone for the campaign and made it feel a bit like a movement.

We wanted our mailmen to look like rock stars so we chose Kasabian’s photographer of choice, Neil Bedford, to shoot the ads.

Royal Mail Group awarded a framework contract for strategic direct marketing services to Publicis Chemistry in 2013.  Publicis was contracted to "provide all direct marketing services, including advertising, creative, design and sales promotion, for all of Royal Mail Group’s range of services."  The MailMen campaign launched in the early part of 2015.

See You Tube video on MailMen here.

Unfortunately although the video shows a wide range of approaches to Direct Mail users, and a pack sent to the CEOs of FTSE100 companies, there is no mention of the book of stamps.  Maybe it is in the pack?  Maybe there was more than one in each pack?  

Certainly many more than 100 would have been printed: although the inside cover advert could have been added manually, replacing the normal one, the stamps are stuck to the outside cover, so the same trick is unlikely.  You could bet that if the whole thing was made up manually, Royal Mail would have supplied counter sheet or business sheet stamps, rather than the sort that should be in the book.

The source of the story.

The story provided by the current owner of the booklet is that he and others visited a company that their employer was using.  "For their 100th anniversary they had commissioned a booklet from Royal Mail and I was given  one. I have never seen anything similar nor heard of any other company that did the same (or for which RM did the same)."

The identity and business of that company is unknown, but it seems from our investigation that this booklet was probably not custom-produced for that company for their centenary, but it's a very good find. 

Do please let me know if you have ever seen this or similar booklets, especially if you have one still!

UPDATE: And if you are interested, offers around £300 or more will be considered by the owner. Email me or phone - the number is at the top right.

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Machin Stamp Booklet Variations Leave Collectors Puzzled

I've been asked to write again on the peculiar situation regarding 1st class booklets of 12 stamps that have been produced in recent years.  Most of the questions are answered in the Comments on the earlier post, but this ought to explain things more clearly.

The red 1st class stamps were first issued in January 2013 with a M12L year code, using cylinder W5 which had previously been used for gold stamps before the Diamond Jubilee issue in 2012.

Red cylinder W5 continued in use through 2013 to 2014, the long life of the cylinder being ascribed to relatively lower volumes and the better quality of modern cylinders.

So there were plentiful supplies of M14L booklets, not only last year but through to the
spring of 2015.  Searching for the M15L version even after Easter all I could find were M14L, and only a few M15L appeared on eBay by the end of June.

Early in October 2015 the M15L printing was suddenly available all round the country, as reported here.  Because of the relocation of Walsall's printing to a new factory and new press, these were printed from a new cylinder W7, with the number positioned closer to the stamps, and thus hidden by the front cover of the booklet.

What wasn't expected was that the same red W7 cylinder would have been used in conjuction with W14L iridescent, or that these would not appear until after the M15L had been discovered.

These booklets are distributed in wrapped packs of 50 with a barcode and packing date printed on, and it is quite possible that we have - naturally - passed by the packets with no cylinder booklets in.   However, the M15L seen so far have a packing date of 30/03/2015 while the M14L W7 version have packing dates in April!

So the 2014 version of 12 x 1st booklets exists in three forms: Cylinder W5 with two different telephone numbers on the covers, and Cylinder W7 not released until October 2015. 

At present we do not have any stock of M14L W7 booklets.

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Curioser and Curioser - for those who like a bit more detail.
 
The 1st class booklet printings.  The order of cylinder numbers changed on the new press.

Printed on original press:  W14L - Red W5 - Phosphor W2 - Iridescent W1

Printed on new press:
W14L - Red W7 - Iridescent W2 - Phosphor W2 (unchanged but should be W3)
A new iridescent cylinder W2 for the new press;

W15L - Red W7 (unchanged) - Iridescent W1 - Phosphor W2
A new iridescent cylinder W1 for 15.  Phosphor should have been changed to W3 for the new M14L printing.


The 2nd class booklet printings.

Printed on original press: W12L, W13L and W14L - Blue W4 - Phosphor W2 - Iridescent W1

Printed on new press:       W15L - Blue W6 - Iridescent W1 - Phosphor W3
The iridescent number is new because it is a new year, and the phosphor has, correctly, been increased by one because it is a new version of the single-band phosphor cylinder.

So the numbers on 1st class have been W5, W7 and 2nd class are W4, W6 - but historically cylinder numbers have been allocated in sequence for each design.  There is no known reason why International Security Printers should not allocate numbers consecutively for each type of book - 1st x 12, 2nd x 12, 1st x 6, 2nd L x 4, 1st L x 4, as they have done for some of the phosphor cylinders, and should have done in all cases.

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What more for Machin Security stamps ?

And so we approach the end of another year, a year in which Machin definitives and Post and Go Faststamps have made the most GB philatelic news despite the efforts of Royal Mail's special stamp programme to engender some life into other areas of collecting, and to attract new collectors.  As written in the latest Stamp Magazine, the lack of mainstream media coverage of, for example, the Prime Ministers issue (which included Margaret Thatcher, surely one of the most controversial of modern PMs) demonstrated that the nationals didn't really take any notice of Royal Mail's output.

But are we finished with this year's Machins and, aside from the Alice in Wonderland booklet stamp, what will be the first new Machin Security Stamp to appear next year?  The only low-value stamp still to appear with a 2014 reprint date is the 1p, a value used so much to supplement the others that it must surely have been reprinted alongside the other low values and will appear quite soon.  But my bet for the first sheet stamp to appear with a 2015 code is the 97p.

Reprinted 6 times since the first (January 2014) printing this is possibly the most-used value outside the 2nd and 1st class NVIs.  Post Office branches reported stocks running low in the Christmas period as, quite inexplicably, the value was not included in the Christmas set.  There's no 97p in the Alice in Wonderland set either, which does - bizarrely - have two 81p surface mail stamps.

We can expect the rate to change in the March/April review (probably to £1 which will save having a new stamp), but I doubt that there will be any 97p special stamps before then.  The last set before the rate change is always a set of 1st class stamps - they have to be printed so far in advance of a decision being made on new postage rates that stamps with a face value are never included in the set issued in March.


Machins first issued or discovered in 2014 - 36 this year
In the order they appeared:

2931R.2W - 2nd class coil 10,000 printed by Walsall - M12L MRIL

4002P.3E - 2p From Classic Locomotives of the UK prestige stamp book M13L MPIL
4005P.3F - 5p ditto.  4005P.3E was in the Merchant Navy PSB with inverted perforations

2911.4 - 2nd class counter sheet

3081 - 81p "holly green" - emerald
3097 - 97p "purple heather" - bluish violet
3147 -  £1.47 "dove grey" - lavender-grey
3215 -  £2.15 "marine turquoise"- greenish blue

2913B.4 - 2nd class Large business sheet MBIL MA14
2936.4  - 1st class red MTIL from booklet of 12

4010P.4 -  10p MPIL from Buckingham Palace PSB
4020P.4  - 20p  MPIL from Buckingham Palace PSB
4100P.4  -  £1 MPIL from Buckingham Palace PSB

2936C.4  - 1st class MCIL from Buckingham Palace mixed retail booklet

3010.4  -  10p M14L/MAIL from counter sheet
3020.4  -  20p M14L/MAIL from counter sheet
3101.4  -  £1 bistre-brown M14L/MAIL from counter sheet

3128.4 - £1.28 M14L/MAIL emerald from counter sheet
2914.4 - 1st  M14L/MAIL class counter sheet
2916.4 - 1st Large M14L/MAIL counter sheet

2916B.4 - 1st class Large business sheet MBIL MA14
2913.4 -  2nd class Large counter sheet M14L
2931.4 - 2nd class MTIL M14L from booklet of 12
2914R.3 - 1st class coil (of 10,000) by Walsall M13L MRIL

2911B.4 - 2nd class business sheet MBIL M14L (correction)
2914B.4 - 1st class business sheet MBIL M14L
2933.4 - 2nd Large MFIL from booklet of 4
2937.4  - 1st Large MFIL from booklet of 4
2936S.4 - 1st class red MSIL from booklet of 6 

4010P.4a -  10p MPIL from Great War PSB - shade and phosphor difference.
4020P.4a  - 20p  MPIL from Great War PSB - shade and phosphor difference.
4100P.4a  -  £1 MPIL from Great War PSB - shade and phosphor difference.

2985.4 - Special Delivery 100g M14L
3002.4 - 2p counter sheet M14L
2986.4 - Special Delivery 500g M14L
3005.4 - 5p counter sheet M14L

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In value order

3002.4 - 2p counter sheet M14L
4002P.3E - 2p From Classic Locomotives of the UK prestige stamp book M13L MPIL
4005P.3F - 5p ditto. 
3005.4 - 5p counter sheet M14L
4010P.4 -  10p MPIL from Buckingham Palace PSB
4010P.4a -  10p MPIL from Great War PSB - shade and phosphor difference.

3010.4  -  10p M14L/MAIL from counter sheet
4020P.4  - 20p  MPIL from Buckingham Palace PSB
4020P.4a  - 20p  MPIL from Great War PSB - shade and phosphor difference.
3020.4  -  20p M14L/MAIL from counter sheet
3081   -   81p "holly green" - emerald M14L/MAIL
3097   -   97p "purple heather" - bluish violet M14L/MAIL

4100P.4  -  £1 MPIL from Buckingham Palace PSB
4100P.4a  -  £1 MPIL from Great War PSB - shade and phosphor difference.
3101.4  -  £1 bistre-brown M14L/MAIL from counter sheet
3128.4 - £1.28 M14L/MAIL emerald from counter sheet
3147 -  £1.47 "dove grey" - lavender-grey M14L/MAIL
3215 -  £2.15 "marine turquoise"- greenish blue M14L/MAIL

2931R.2W - 2nd class coil 10,000 printed by Walsall - M12L MRIL 
2911.4 - 2nd class counter sheet
2911B.4 - 2nd class business sheet MBIL M14L (correction)
2931.4 - 2nd class MTIL from booklet of 12
 
2913.4 -  2nd class Large counter sheet M14L
2913B.4 - 2nd class Large business sheet MBIL MA14
2933.4 - 2nd Large MFIL from booklet of 4

2914.4 - 1st  M14L/MAIL class counter sheet
2914B.4 - 1st class business sheet MBIL M14L
2914R.3 - 1st class coil (of 10,000) by Walsall M13L MRIL 
2936.4  - 1st class red MTIL from booklet of 12
2936S.4 - 1st class red MSIL from booklet of 6 
2936C.4  - 1st class MCIL from Buckingham Palace mixed retail booklet 
2916.4 - 1st Large M14L/MAIL counter sheet
2916B.4  - 1st class Large business sheet MBIL MA14  
2937.4  - 1st Large MFIL from booklet of 4

2985.4 - Special Delivery 100g M14L
2986.4 - Special Delivery 500g M14L

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New Machin security stamp printings - the last for 2014?

Several new Machin printings have appeared in recent weeks, one of which has produced yet another new stamp for 2014.

Following the 2p M14L printing, and the two Special Delivery stamps, the 5p (reprinted on 17/09/14) has now appeared.  This will be numbered 3005.4 in the Norvic Catalogue: a new edition will be available in January.  The stamp, cylinder and date blocks are available now in our webshop.

Other new printings recently available include two more printings for the 97p - obviously for the Christmas market despite Royal Mail's assertion that this value wasn't need for Christmas, which was why they issued £1.28, £1.47 and £2.15 Christmas stamps but not the value which does double duty for 10g Worldwide and 20g Europe letters/cards.

97p - 18/09/14 and 03/11/14
£2.15 - 17/09/14

When new dates are found I generally only buy a few date blocks for customers, although for totally new stamps I buy sheets.  The new 97p printings are a case when I really wished I had bought the whole sheet: had I known about this mis-perforation I would have! The die-cut is shifted to the left and up, leaving the left-hand security cut passing between the two figures of value.  There is no colour on the tips of the left-hand perfs, but that is only by luck - all the perf-holes on the right-hand side cut into the colour.

This block will probably be offered in the next MBPC Auction.

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Manic Friday - so much stamp news to report!

Post and Go Faststamp News

Earlier this month Alf sent me a picture of a pair of Post and Go flowers Faststamps, printed in sequence but with a blank stamp between them.  They are numbered 01 and 02 (click on the images to see larger versions).

I had a similar situation from one of Norwich's NCR machines yesterday with the Winter Greenery, with a collectors' set of 6 spread over 7 - except that the 2nd stamp was missing!

As I was buying collectors' sets in both formats (ie with the Holly at the top on some and Butcher's Broom on top on others) this could have had serious implications.  Any subsequent sets would have Holly at the top instead of Butcher's Broom, so matching those I had already bought, rather than being in the other order.  Fortunately this was the last of a batch, but it's worth remembering if you buy several sets.

The assistant told me that he thought that if a stamp was missing the machine could recognise the fact and skip the printing down to the next stamp.  I can think of a way in which this could be achieved but will ask Royal Mail before committing myself!

A more comprehensive report about Winter Greenery is in the next post.

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Another Machin 2014 definitive.

It really is no surprise that following the appearance of the reprinted 100g Special Delivery stamp, the 500g has now appeared, with a printing date of 16/09/14.

This is numbered 2986.4 in the Norvic Catalogue and is now available in our webshop.  A limited number of cylinder and date blocks will be available.

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Slogan postmark for European Space Agency

Royal Mail have announced a special slogan postmark to mark the landing of the Philae lander on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko following the Rosetta orbiter’s 10 year mission across the Solar System.

The postmark will appear on letters delivered Friday and Saturday 14/15 November 2014, which implies that it was only used on 13th, but see below!

Thanks to Martin for these pictures and to everybody who sent emails about the announcement whilst I was 'enjoying' myself, shopping in Norwich.  (Well, I had to go to get the Winter Greenery stamps, so saved myself a second journey into the teeming city later in the month!)

And thanks to Bob for these including Swindon MC on 12th

UPDATE
Here is an example in the other layout, which also shows time in addition to date

This Welsh one is also dated 12 Nov, just 4 hours after the landing

The postmark has continued in use after the weekend.  Swindon, South East Anglia, North & West Yorkshire, SE Wales and Exeter Mail Centres.  This Swindon 17 November copy from a square envelope.

The only one I have seen on a Space stamp (with thanks to member mgee on Stampboards)

 


GERMANY has also marked this event with a special handstamp:

UPDATE 30.8.18.  A very late addition to this post as AM has sent this crop from a cover he produced which shows the Welsh 'Delivered By' from SE Wales on 14.11.14.    As well as the 1st class stamp he has used the Joddrell Bank stamp from 1966 (no longer valid of course) and Machin definitives adding up to 67p in honour of Comet 67/P.   

Novelties like this don't have much value to the world at large (unless one of the big cover producers makes them and charges a tenner!) but they add individuality to a collection.  Well done!

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New Catalogue Machin Security Definitive Stamps

We are pleased to announce that the new Norvic Checklist of Machin Security Definitive Stamps is now available free of charge to all collectors and dealers.

Designed to fit the gap between the Stanley Gibbons GB Concise Catalogue and the extreme detail of some other lists, this identifies all the values with all the source and year codes, cross-referenced to SG numbers and Royal Mail product codes.  Source booklet numbers are also included to assist in precise identification.

Table showing 2nd class counter sheet listing

Dates of issue or earliest known dates (EKD) of appearance are shown.  Over the summer the list has been checked by a number of customers and dealers, and many corrections made, but more information is waiting to be discovered, especially on dates.  Checking stamps on ordinary mail may yet reveal that stamps were actually in post offices or other retail outlets earlier than previously thought so the list is always subject to change.  But it is totally up to date with the latest discovery, the 2p M14L (see below).

Some collectors (and dealers) record these stamps in greater detail than we do, for instance according to the size of the gap in the security slits, according to the shape of the perforation, or the direction of printing.  This doesn't claim to be a complete list of Security Machins according to those criteria, but it does list all the basic stamps - and a few extras.

The Norvic numbers are used in our webshop, and we hope that this will help customers to find what they are looking for an fill the gaps.  

To download a copy of the checklist go to Dropbox.

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Machin 2014 is not finished yet - 2p M14L now available.

Perhaps the year still holds more surprises for collectors of Machin Security stamps, as another low value reprint has appeared.

Not reprinted in 2013, the 2p was first issued without an overprint, but with security slits, in 2011. 

When the 1st class red and other palette changes were issued at the beginning of 2013, all the low value stamps were issued with M12L codes.  The 10p and 20p have already been reprinted, but now we have the 2p, reprinted on 26/09/14 with code M14L.  This is available in our shop from today.

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More new printings of Machin Definitive Stamp sheets

More stamps from the May 2014 round of printings are now appearing:


10p       -  21/05/2014
20p       -  28/05/2014
2 Large -  19/05/2014
£1.47    -  22/05/2014
£2.15    -  27/05/2014

Date blocks of 8 of all these are available on request and while stocks last.  They have been added to our webshop, but not in the Recent Additions category - look at the individual listings within 2014.

Of more interest to collectors of the basic stamps, we are expecting to have stocks of the first Special Delivery reprint, the 100g stamp with M14L year code very soon.  Cylinder numbers and Date Blocks will be available.  This will be numbered 2985.4 in our system and is now available to buy.


UPDATE 11August
Back from our August break, I can now add images of the new Special Delivery stamps:

Comparison with the original - because of the silver printing the coding in the iridescent ink shows up in ordinary scans.  The blue ink on the new stamps is deeper, but no more than might be expected during the print run.

 Full sheet of the new stamps showing the 8 grid positions:

And a microscope view of the security coding:

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Stamp Booklet and Business Sheet update 31 July 2014 (revised report)

As reported earlier, new booklets and business sheets are available from 31 July 2014.  The stamp content will be unchanged as far as Royal Mail concerned.  [This blogpost replaces the two earlier ones on the same subject.]

In accordance with new EU regulations on Customer Service, premium rate numbers are no longer permitted for Business-to-Customer after-sales services.  This affects the stamp booklets, on which the telephone number 08457 740 740 has changed to 03457 740 740, and the Textphone/Minocom number from 08456 000 606 to 03456 000 606. 

The new regulations do not apply to Business-to-Business communications, so on the Business Sheets the telephone number is unchanged.  However, the same Textphone number is used for all customers, so that number has changed on Business Sheets.

As mentioned on the original blogpost, the M14L 1st x 6 booklet with the old numbers appeared in June.  We were told by Royal Mail that the Large Letter booklets and small stamp Business Sheets with 2014 codes (MA14/M14L) would make their first appearance with this printing.

In fact supplies of the M14L 2nd class Business Sheet were found in post offices last week, with printing dates of 18/02/14 and 19/02/14.  Our FDCs for 31 July will therefore have only 3 stamps!

(Click on any image for a larger version.)

We don't have cylinders on all booklets yet:

12 x 1st - W5 (red) W2 (phos) W1 (security)

4 x 1st Large - W2 (red), W1 (phos and security)

4 x 2nd Large

12 x 2nd

6 x 1st -  31 July with previous M14L booklet for comparison.  Used copies are known from mid-June.

Barcodes and packing details:

BUSINESS SHEETS (Click on any image for a larger version.)

Printing date 05/06/14 - sheet number 9403397 

Printing date 11/06/14 - sheet number 2456883

The Large Letter Stamps are unchanged, so here are the sheet tops for the record:

Printing date 27/05/14 - sheet number 1749264

Printing date 21/05/14 - sheet number 1683411

Thanks to all readers who sent in comments on this subject, and apologies for the confusion on the changes.  Royal Mail did not tell us the complete details, so there has been detective work involved!
Thanks to Robert, Brian and Machnimaniac and others.

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