Aardman Classics set & MS 19 October 2022: not such a blockbuster

Readers who keep a look out for new issue information may have noticed that Royal Mail briefly showed their next issue on their shop webpage today (3 October).  I don't know how my readers find them, but this one was gone by the time I looked!

Others will notice that cover producers websites (and their emails) will reveal that the next issue features Aardman Classics.  The full details will not appear here until the embargo is properly lifted on the issue date - crazy isn't it?  However we have received the October Postmark Bulletin which includes handstamps related to this issue.

The reason for this issue, according to Royal Mail:

Royal Mail celebrates stop go animation and the creative genius of Aardman Animations with 8 special stamps. Showcasing some of Aardman’s most celebrated work, the stamps include fan favourites from Chicken Run to Frank the Tortoise. We also pay homage to one of the British public’s favourite duos, Wallace and Gromit, with an exclusive miniature sheet, featuring four of their most iconic moments.

Meanwhile here are some earlier Aardman stamps.

2nd class large Christmas 2010

Classic Children's TV 2014

The stamps & MS

Set of 8 Aardman Classics stamps issued 19 October 2022

UPDATE 5 October.  I have received supplies of these today, Royal Mail are evidently clearing the warehouse as early as possible to make way for Christmas and what should be large stocks of the In Memoriam issue both due early next month.

As you know I confine my interest in the modern special stamps to reporting them and looking briefly at them before passing them on to customers.  So I may be wrong - if so you will doubtless tell me - but I think these may be the first Special Stamps (non-Christmas) to be printed with Security Backing Paper? 

There have been other self-adhesive specials since 2016, which I have handled, but I didn't notice the SBP2.  These are the actual stamps:

 

Wallace & Gromit celebrate four of their favourite ‘cracking’ moments by displaying them proudly on their wall, in their humble abode at 62 West Wallaby Street. Key moments on the stamps include memories from A Matter of Loaf and Death, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and A Grand Day Out.  This is an exclusive miniature sheet created especially for Royal Mail by Aardman.

Aardman Classics miniature sheet issued 19 October 2022

2nd Class - Rocky and Ginger (Chicken Run)
; Feathers McGraw (The Wrong Trousers)

1st Class - Wallace and Gromit; 
Frank (Creature Comforts)

£1.85 - Timmy (Shaun the Sheep, Timmy Time)
; Morph and Chas (The Amazing Adventures of Morph & more) 
£2.55: - Robin (Robin Robin, 2021); Shaun and Blitzer (Shaun the Sheep).

MS 1st class -  A Close Shave; A Matter of Loaf and Death.
MS £1.85 -   The Wrong Trousers; A Grand Day Out.

Technical Details

The stamps and miniature sheet were designed by Studio Up and Royal Mail Group and printed by Cartor Security Printers.  All are self-adhesive, and printed in litho.  

The sheets of 60 are perforated 13.5 x 14.  The sheet stamps are 37 x 27 mm (basic),

The miniature sheet stamps are 27 x 37 mm (A Close Shave) 34 x 24 mm (remainder), all perforated 14.

Collectors Sheet

Aardman Classics Collectors sheet issued 19 October 2022

This is a sheet of only 8 stamps, ie the full set with no duplication.  It's self-adhesive, so the stamps may not be materially different to those in sheets.

Other products

First day covers (2), presentation pack, postcards, press sheet of 12 miniature sheets (edition of only 500, 4 barcoded (on the right), and 8 non-barcoded.   Additionally there is a medal cover and framed set, MS, and collectors sheet.

Acknowledgements: 

© and TM Aardman Animations Limited/Wallace & Gromit Limited 2022. All rights reserved. ‘Wallace & Gromit’, ‘Shaun the Sheep’, ‘Timmy Time’, ‘Robin Robin’, ‘Morph’, ‘Creature Comforts’ and ‘Aardman’ (word marks) and the characters ‘Wallace’, ‘Gromit’, ‘Timmy’, ‘Robin’ and ‘Morph’ are trade marks used under licence from Aardman Animations Limited/Wallace & Gromit Limited. www.aardman.com. ‘Robin, Robin’ animated feature © Netflix. ‘Chicken Run’ © DreamWorks Animation LLC, Aardman Chicken Run Limited and Pathé Image.

I'm pleased to see that there is no prestige stamp book for this issue, so not quite the blockbuster that it might have been. 

 

We will not be stocking the new stamps.

The next issues will be 

3 November - Christmas. These may be on the Royal Mail website on 25 October.

10 November - Queen Elizabeth II In Memoriam

24 November -  Tutankhamun's Treasures (Embargo date not yet announced!)

 

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Security Backing Paper - let's end the confusion

Whenever something new occurs, finders, dealers, and catalogue editors inevitably find their own initial ways to describe the change, or to number new stamps leading to some confusion among collectors.  This can lead to errors in orders, something we all want to avoid, if customers are using terms that we do not use everyday and in our own lists.

When I first alerted collectors to the second type of Security Backing Paper, containing some inverted text, I had initially suggested that

...with new printing the paper could be re-rolled as it 'would always be the right way up'. 

But of course I was wrong, as I explained in February 2017. With text both large (L) and small (S) and upright (U) and inverted (I), the field was wide open for ways to describe it, and of course he who goes first doesn't always have the final say.

I suggested that one type would be

SU - LU - SI - LI

and what I described as the inverted type would be

SI - LU - SU - LI

 

And that stuck until others decided that there could be other ways.

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Stanley Gibbons
In his Gibbons Stamp Monthly Machin Watch column John Deering uses an abbreviated form

sL or Ls

So sL equates to our Upright, and Ls is the equivalent of our Inverted.  The chart in the Concise catalogue also shows the upright and inverted versions of SBP1 (PB-up and PB-inv).

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Modern British Philatelic Circle
The MBPC has adopted a different approach, with this description:

When, anywhere within the design, the line ROYAL MAIL etc. (in large upright letters) is followed by the line ROYAL MAIL (in small upright letters), the design is upright (designated SBP2u).When, anywhere within the design, the line ROYAL MAIL (in large upright letters) is followed by ROYAL MAIL (in small inverted letters), the design isinverted (designated SBP2i).

Or to put it another way: on SBP2, they've put the Large before the small, and decided that is Upright (SBP2u), the total opposite of my original suggestion and that used by Stanley Gibbons' catalogues.

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So there you have the designations most commonly used.  This is why collectors using one or other of these designations when writing to dealers present them with a problem.  Undoubtedly the SG Concise version ought to be most widely used.  However for that degree of specialisation, the members of the MBPC are most likely to want both, and they will use the Circle's system, which is unfortunate as the membership numbers far less than the huge number of Machin collectors worldwide.

Hopefully the information provided will help collectors and dealers to interact with each other without less confusion.

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New Machin Printings wrapping things up for Christmas.

As we expected they might, some low value Machin reprints have now appeared, rounding off most of the sheet stamps on Security Printed Backing Paper (SBP) - we never really believed the 50p and £1 would be reprinted.

The 2p and 10p counter sheets first appeared in June and April respectively with plain backing paper. Now we have the reprints on version 2 of the security printed backing paper.  The 2p seen has SuLi-SiLu arrangement and the 10p has SuLu-SiLi, for the record.  The backing paper for the 10p is also much paler, almost impossible to scan. These were scanned on the same settings.

The 2p was printed on 24/10/17 and the 10p was printed on 26/09/17.

Both are printed from colour cylinder D2, and iridescent and phosphor cylinders D1.

There have been reprints of four other stamps as well, again showing marked differences in the backing paper.  I'm recording the lettering arrangement for information only: I'm not recording all of them in our Checklist - for which a new version will be released very soon.

The 5p printed 03/10/17 has dark backing printing; the £1.57 printed 27/09/17 has pale; the 1st class printed 09/10/17 has pale, and the 2nd class printed 24/10/17 has dark.

The 2nd class is SiLuSuLi.  The 1st class is SuLuSiLi.
The 5p is SiLuSuLi, and the £1.57 is SuLuSiLi.

New stamps will be added to our shop shortly, and to the checklist.  Note that shop orders - especially international ones - may not be posted before the Christmas holidays, which means they will wait until the first week of January.

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Star Wars 2017 Retail Booklets compared

Some time ago when the second version of Security Printed Backing Paper was announced I mentioned that the format did not (as we thought it would be) show the same layout when inverted, due to the arrangement of the lines of small and large lettering. (Details here.)

After some debate with collectors and other dealers I determined that we would not separately list the two versions of SBP2 (although some dealers and the Modern British Philatelic Circle are trying to).  I concluded that most collectors would want only one type (indeed, some want only one stamp whatever the backing paper looks like), and that it would be too easy to make mistakes.  Not only that but holding stocks of both would be expensive.  So we sell what we have only distinguishing between plain, SBP1 and SBP2.

However, that doesn't mean that we ignore the matter entirely, and the new Star Wars retail booklets to be issued on 12 October provide a good opportunity to show the difference, because in our supplies, the two booklets are printed on differently presented backing paper!

The booklet with blue selvedge includes the BB-8 and R2-D2 stamps; the booklet with the brown selvedge includes the Maz Kanata and Chewbacca stamps.

The blue booklet (on the right) has Small and Large Upright, followed by Small and Large Inverted text.

The brown booklet (on the left) has Small Inverted, Large and Small Upright, and Large Inverted.

As far as I know all the booklets are printed in the same orientation, that is upright (unlike much older stitched booklets which were printed tete-beche).  So all should be the same - at least from the same roll of paper.  However, it is more than possible that one or both booklets were printed from more than one roll of paper, and therefore they could both exist with the backing paper in both orientations. 

I look forward to seeing reports of booklets bought from Post Offices or delivered from Tallents House, if they are different to these.

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Security Printing: Up, Down, both - does it matter? Not for the present.

A number of people have written about whether stamps exist on upright or inverted Security Backing Paper, which I mentioned last week.  Several stamps - and maybe even some of my pictures! - show instances that I didn't mention.

Now John Deering has written about the same feature in Gibbons Stamp Monthly (June 2017) so what exists is clearly more complex than I originally thought.  (No comments here: if you have a contribution please continue on last week's discussion.)

So I shan't be adding any further on this for the present.  It's probably not worth separately listing both types on the same stamp as a sales option in our webshop, certainly not at present.  Far better that my time is spent on sending out to customers the stamps that they have already ordered and paid for!    Next news will be about the Machin Anniversary issue.  Meanwhile shown above is a taste of what has already been shown in the philatelic press, but an actual scan.

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Keen observation reveals mixed use of SBP2 backing paper

When I first reported the use of the second type of security backing paper (SBP2) I showed that if the backing paper was re-reeled and used inverted, the format of the text would be different.

UPDATE 18 MAY
"I shan't be adding any further on this for the present.  It's probably not worth separately listing both types on the same stamp as a sales option in our webshop, certainly not at present. "
See full text on later blog post here.

Small Upright Large Upright Small Inv Large Inv -- --  Small Inv Large Upright Small Up Large Inv

Now an eagle-eyed customer (thanks Rolf) has observed that the two different formats have already been used - and nobody else seems to have noticed, probably because at this stage no individual stamp has appeared on both types.

So far the split seems to be:

SI LU SU LI
2nd and 2nd Large counter sheets M17L
1st and 1st Large counter sheets M17L
2017 new tariff high values counter sheets M17L
5p and 20p counter sheets M17L
1st Large Business Sheet M17L (shown below)

SU LU SI LI
2nd M16L MBIL
2nd M16L MTIL
1st M16L MTIL
1st M16L MTIL
1st M17L MTIL (shown below)

So aside from the 2nd class business sheet, all the thin-paper stamps (counter and business sheets) have been printed on what I described originally as an 'inverted' SBP2;  and all the thicker booklet stamps have been printed on original (upright) paper.

More new printings
As 'Trelantis' mentions in a comment on last week's post about the 5p and 20p sheet stamps, the 1st Large business sheet and 12 x 1st booklet, both M17L, have now appeared and will be listed on our webshop when it reopens later today.  The iridescent printing on the business sheet is not very strong, being similar to the M16L booklet issued earlier.

1st Large business sheet (Norvic 2916aB.7) - printed 22/02/17

12 x 1st booklet M17L (norvic 2936a.7) packing date not yet known.  Cylinder numbers W7 (red),  W1 (iridescent), W2 (phosphor).

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Big Batch of New Machin Printings Brings Surprises

We mentioned last week a number of new printings of Machin definitive counter sheets - but there are actually more new stamps than we realised from the first report.  And there are some values printed on old paper stocks, and others on the second type of Security Backing Paper, which we refer to as SBP2.

But first a recap.   As we reported on 6 February the March issue of Stamp Magazine reported that a 9 December 2016 printing of the 1st class counter sheet stamp is not only on backing paper with a security print (the first time for a counter sheet), but that it is the new type.

This isn't a very good picture because it is a scan of a magazine print: you can't see the security code but the article by Don Staddon stated that it was M16L, which is logical for a December 2016 printing. 

And this is where things start to get interesting.  The first counter sheet stamp to appear with M17L code was the 2nd class, printed on 04/01/17, and this was on plain paper.  The M16L SBP2 1st class stamp had still not been on sale when the new tariff stamps were issued on 21 March: these were also on plain paper printed in the period 19-24/01/17 (other dates in January may exist, but it now seems unlikely).  Around the same time new M17L printings of the 10p, 1st Large Signed For, and Special Delivery 100g were printed (27/01, 26/01 and 01/02/17 respectively).  All these were also on plain backing paper.

The first deep scarlet* M17L 1st class and 1st Large were printed on 27/02 and 01/03/17 respectively, followed by the 2nd Large, and a reprint of the M17L 2nd class on 13/03 and 22/03/17 respectively.  All are on SBP2, the 2nd class for the first time.  Between the two 1st class values, and the two 2nd class values, the new tariff stamps were reprinted on SBP2 in the period 03/03-10/03/17. 
* see note at foot of blog about why these are not considered 'new'.


Obviously the original printing of the new tariff stamps was for initial distribution to Post Offices, collectors, and businesses and these, along with the 10p, Signed For, and Special Delivery stamps were printed on the last of the plain paper - of course there may also be other values also printed in this period which are yet to appear, so we may not have seen the last of the plain paper printings.  But the 2nd class M17L on plain paper is likely to be scarcer than the new tariff stamps which were obviously treated as new issues for collectors by Royal Mail.

The stamps with new year codes will be mentioned in the Stanley Gibbons Concise Catalogue.  What we don't know at this stage, of course, is how Gibbons will treat stamps printed on SBP2 when the same stamp has already been listed on plain paper.  In our own Checklist these will be given 'a' numbers.  In numbering the new stamps we realised that we made some errors in allocating numbers last year when the deep scarlet stamps were issued, and so some 8 numbers have been changed for the next edition (Version 1.5.6)

This year's new stamps listing in full: 29 so far (includes some with M16L codes)
These should all now be visible on our webshop.  (please let me know if anything is missing!)

2911.7        2nd class counter sheet plain paper printed 04/01/17
2911.7a      2nd class counter sheet on SBP2 printed 22/03/17

2911B.6a   2nd class business sheet M16L on SBP2 printed 15/12/16

2913.7       2nd Large counter sheet M17L on SBP2 printed 13/03/17

(2914a.6     1st class deep scarlet M16L on SBP2 printed 09/12/06 - not yet seen)
2914a.7      1st class deep scarlet M17L on SBP2 printed 27/02/17
2914aB.6a  1st class deep scarlet business sheet M16L on SBP2 printed 14/12/16

2916a.7      1st Large deep scarlet M17L on SBP2 printed 01/03/17

2931.6a      2nd class retail booklet M16L on SBP2 packing date 13/12/16

2936a.6a     1st class retail booklet of 12 M16L on SBP2 packing date 12/12/16
2936aS.6a   1st class retail booklet of 6 M16L on SBP2 packing dates 4,5, 13/01/17
2936aC.7    1st class mixed retail booklet M17L on SBP1 packing date 30/11/16

2985.7         1st Large Signed For M17L plain paper printed 26/01/17
2992.7         Special Delivery 100g M17L plain paper printed 01/02/1

3010.7         10p dull orange M17L on plain paper printed 27/01/17

3117            £1.17 vermillion plain paper printed 20/01/17
3117a          £1.17 vermillion SBP2 printed 03/03/17
3140            £1.40 grey-green plain paper printed 19/01/17
3140a          £1.40 grey-green  SBP2 printed 07/03/17
3157            £1.57 olive-green plain paper printed 20/01/17
3157a          £1.57 olive-green SBP2 printed 07/03/17
3227            £2.27 ochre plain paper printed 23/01/17
3227a          £2.27 ochre SBP2 printed 10/03/17
3255            £2.55 deep red-brown plain paper printed 24/01/17
3255a          £2.55 deep red-brown SBP2 printed 08/03/17

3702aP.6     1st class deep scarlet MPIL M16L issued 15/02/17 Windsor Castle PSB
4002P.6       2p deep green MPIL M16L issued 15/02/17 Windsor Castle PSB

4010P.6       10p dull orange MPIL M16L MPIL M16L issued 15/02/17 Windsor Castle PSB ±
4105P.6       £1.05 sage-green MPIL M16L issued 15/02/17 Windsor Castle PSB ±

4500            £5 deep blue Accession Anniversary

± These two values were previously issued in the Beatrix Potter PSB; some slight shade difference can be seen on some stamps.

The new stamps
M17L printings

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

1st class M16L Business Sheet with SBP2:

1st class MSIL M16L Booklet with SBP2

All these will be added to our webshop to be available from the middle of next week.  Due to the number of stamps to be added it will take a while to prepare all the pictures and write-ups for the shop.

I have confirmed* that even though the 1st and 1st large stamps in counter sheets are obviously new and obviously different to the lighter colour issued earlier, Royal Mail do not intend to make them available as a new stamp or distribute them to standing order customers, something which I find quite incredible.  I think it demonstrates that what used to be a good Philatelic Bureau has lost the plot, taken its eye off the ball, and any number of other cliches that you might use - but this, the erratic information on Post and Go and in the Philatelic Bulletin, the very variable service reported by collectors about its new England-based call-centre, and the hiatus in production of the Postmark Bulletin means it no longer provides an adequate service to collectors.  

Time for another kick in the pants: Tallents House is not just there to sell collectables to music fans! 

UPDATE 26 APRIL 
Official response from Royal Mail both to me, and on Facebook (see comments):

We have reviewed the events regarding the new darker red and new security arrangements and clearly there is no prospect of any retroactive day of availability and therefore no regular order distribution either. Off the record, in terms of why it didn’t happen this was really a scheduling and shading matter in that the colour remained Royal Mail Red but with changes led by branding e.g. extending use of a padlock to books and adding 5% (CMYK) black to stamps to match the red tone of vans and pillar boxes, it was felt the stamp remained essentially the same with the change only noticeable with a direct comparison to an older stamp. In future, we will consider a bulk issue of such changes rather than the sequenced roll out of standard and large stamps through Retail Books, Business Sheets and Stamp sheets on a product by product basis.

Additionally, and not on Facebook:

In terms of the backing paper this is a moot point. The stamp image file was essentially unchanged but applied to a different backing paper, the security feature is in the paper process not the stamp printing process so didn’t come through our policy change process, which is historically design led. Perhaps it should have done and we’ve taken steps to ensure it does in future. 

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