A new detailed catalogue and a forgery checklist.

Whilst at Midpex I picked up a copy of the new 'Complete Machin Stamp Catalogue - A specialised Guide to the Machin Definitive Series 1967-2021 by G J Burgess.

What, another new catalogue, you say?  Yes, in addition to the very specialised Deegam, the reasonably specialised Gibbons Concise, the freely-downloadable Stoneham, the out-of-date Connoisseur, the Machin Collectors Club catalogue, and our own detailed Checklist of the security stamps, is there a need for another?

The Complete Machin Stamp Catalogue - Burgess.

 

Well each of these catalogues has its own features, little extras, and omissions.  Whilst many will rely on the Gibbons product because that is what very many dealers use for their price lists, as a reference book it can be quite difficult to use, with no illustrations of booklet panes, and constant references back and forth to establish (often by type number rather than catalogue number) the actual contents of a booklet. (Try booklets QA1-4, for starters!)

The well illustrated Stoneham GB Catalogue, which usefully shows every PSB pane, has an arrangement for the Machins which assumes you know where you are starting from, with the first decimal Machins arranged according to paper/gum type, in over 20 different lists in 17 pages, and that's just the pre-elliptical stamps.  The pattern is repeated for the elliptical.  And as if an afterthought, all the self-adhesive stamps are in a separate section after the Booklets listing, over 110 pages after the gummed NVIs.

 

The new book

The first and most obvious thing about the Burgess catalogue is that it is A4 not A5.  It's on better quality paper than the Concise with its 250+ pages coming in at two-thirds of the thickness of the Concise's 566. 

It's also clear - all pages are in a single column, compared with the 2-column style of many of the others.  This aids clarity, with a sans-serif typeface. While some prefer Times New Roman, the serifs make it harder, not to read, but to study.   And the tabular system, with lines separating the rows means that even with the wider page, it is easy to use:

Burgess Machin catalogue 'value' stamps with elliptical perforations, page 61

The observant will notice that the Courvoisier trial stamps and the 2002 official 'RNIB' trial booklet stamps are also listed, the latter priced considerably higher than the much-publicised recent discoveries.

When it comes to the 2009> security stamps the detail is staggering.  The listing of each of the stamps with it's year code and source code (counting absence of a year code as 2009 in the same table as all the stamps with actual year codes), means 10 pages for the NVIs, and more for the special purpose stamps, the Diamond Jubilee and Long to Reign, with booklet contents being shown, rather than just the cover as Gibbons does.

NVI Security stamps listing in Burgess Machin catalogue.

Other pages show all the colour tabs for each of the stamps for each year, making it easy - if you have your collection arranged by year - to identify anything missing.  Equally it's easy to see which stamps don't exist in a particular year - no 1p, 2p or 5p counter sheet stamps in 2013 and no 1p stamp in 2014, for example.  Always useful if you have convinced yourself that a gap means that you are missing a stamp - you're not, Royal Mail did!

The section on gummed security stamps clearly shows which prestige book each appeared in.  No issue dates, they really aren't relevant expect for first day covers, and the first of any year always use the previous year's year code.

If you hark back to the Wildings, for which the (Gibbons) catalogues often showed all the printing dates and cylinders, well this book shows all the printing dates for the counter sheets, from 1p to 500g Special Delivery.

Counter sheet printing dates - Burgess Machin catalogue.

Regional/Country definitives are also covered of course, but only the Machins.  A detailed study of the pictorial country definitives would show many differences over the years that they have replaced the old 'emblem' stamps.

After the expected stamps come Machin stamps for Gibraltar, independent Guernsey, and a two-page listing for Hong Kong.  This is important and useful; I know of at least one collector who has an impressive collection of Hong Kong Machins used on cover (yes, I'm back to postal history again).

Modern non-Machin stamps are included for completeness, such as the decimal Wildings & Castles, and the 1d black (etc) definitive-sized stamps.  Booklets are shown in detail, although the (non-Machin) greetings stamps only have one illustration for the three different combinations of stamps, so here only marginally better than the Concise.  

There is also a two-page un-illustrated listing of forgeries of the security stamps.

Prestige Stamp Book definitive panes are well illustrated in the Burgess Machin Catalogue.

 

With excellent colour matching and quality printing this is an excellent book for the Machin collector even if you have others, which it will supplement.  It is priced at £29.99 and can be obtained from some stamp dealers or direct from the publisher through his eBay listing.   A pdf version is also available, supplied on a USB-stick for £16.99.  

UPDATE 15 July: If you are ordering stamps etc from Arun Stamps, Tony now has stocks of this catalogue which can be included. 

Forgeries

Just before I went off to Midpex, a collector and regular contributor here sent me a digital copy of a listing of Machin and other modern Forgeries he has compiled.  Fully illustrated with not just individual stamps, but complete booklets, 'sheets of 99', business sheets etc, this runs to 140 pages and includes Christmas stamps and country definitives.  

This is another tour de force, and I hope he makes it available to others interested in modern forgeries.

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Presentation Packs - a new catalogue

The first presentation pack sold by the General Post Office was for the 1964 Shakespeare Festival stamps issued on 23 April 1964, but not until 1976 was a pack produced for every special stamp issue. 

After 50 years, the first catalogue devoted solely to packs has now been published, with a wealth of information on the history and development of the packs, and it reveals that there is far more to the subject than many people realise.

As well as the more obvious Commemorative and Definitive packs, and those for Greetings Stamps, Postage Dues, and Post and Go (Faststamps), the catalogue also covers Year Packs (and Books), privately produced packs and forerunners.  The earliest forerunners were simple window envelopes containing Castles High Values.  Sold in 1960 at either £1.18s.0d or US$6.50, these are now catalogued at £1,750 or £3,000.

The stamps in these packs were also available, of course, separately from other sources - post offices and later the Philatelic Bureau.  But the book also includes some products which exist only in that form, for instance packs produced in recent years by Royal Mail containing Facsimiles of classic stamps, the 1d black, 1d red, PUC £1 etc. 

Whilst the catalogue is comprehensive, the editors make no claim that it is complete.  Some printing varieties are included but there may be more.  'Format packs' are included - these are retail display packs containing (for example, cylinder blocks or gutter pairs of special issues), but I understand that some also exist for definitives.  The production of any catalogue or handbook is usually the impetus for collectors and dealers to identify errors and omissions which often results in an improved second edition.

Produced by the Packs and Cards company, and priced at £24.95 the catalogue is available from all good stamp dealers, bookshops and direct from www.PacksAndCards.com [ISBN 978-099286750-8].


I think it is regrettable that Royal Mail have never produced a pack, or similar document, that would be much more practical.  As the catalogue advises:

To keep packs safe, it is advisable to store them in strong boxes or in specifically designed presentation pack albums. 

And therein lies a problem, as far as I am concerned.  In a stamp album, the stamps are displayed and written up (to a greater or lesser extent) and everything can be seen.

There is a great deal of well illustrated information included in presentation packs, but it is all hidden if stored as advised!   In 1982 Royal Mail changed the format to fold out vertically, rather than horizontally, in a format that used approximately an A4 sheet of card, with stamps on a separate carrier.

In 2004 there was a further change, when the plastic carrier was incorporated on one panel of the pack, often with important information printed behind the space for each stamp (something which was continued with the smaller packs produced for Faststamps).

But to get the real benefit of the packs they must be unfolded, and to see the information behind the stamps, they must be removed! 

Some packs are now designed to be viewed in the opposite orientation, such as the motorcycles and stamp locomotives.  But how much better they would be if they were A4 sheet designed to be kept as A4 sheets, unfolded, with space for the stamps, and with all the text visible and oriented the same direction.  Then they would be collectable, in an album that could be opened, the stamps admired and the stories read.

As they are, they are simply bought as collectables (or, sad to say, investments) and put away, and I suspect that a good number of the buyers never read the words or learn about their stamps.

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UPDATE: Reinforcing one of the comments about Royal Mail quality control, I've been sent this picture of stamps included in the latest (Fish) pack sent to a loyal standing order subscriber:

Correcting errors when people complain is not good enough; they should correct the processes which lead to the errors as well.  But customers who don't even open them, they just put them in an album or box will never know whether they have collectable or damaged stamps!

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First Class: A History of Britain in 36 Postage Stamps - book review

First Class: A History of Britain in 36 Postage Stamps
by Chris West 

This isn't and doesn't pretend to be book about stamps; the stamps are used as pegs upon which to hang aspects of the history of Britain from Victorian times to the present day.

If it was about stamps only, author Chris West would have had no trouble seeking out a better copy of the Victorian 4s red of 1867 than the one used to illustrate the increase in global trade and expansion of empire which required the General Post Office to issue this and other high value stamps.

Britain's trade into China was difficult, the Chinese maintaining that “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There is therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce.” So Britain took opium from the hillsides of India to China, and after a couple of wars, Britain gained the island of Hong Kong, and that chapter is illustrated with a Hong Kong 5c stamp.

The inter-war years of inflation, depression, jazz and modernity are illustrated with a German 2 million mark surcharge, the Silver Jubilee issue, and King Edward VIII's definitive.

So the story of Britain is not only about Rowland Hill, Disraeli, Gladstone, Churchill, but includes Dickens, Brunel, Bazalgette (sewers), Tommy Flowers (Colossus), Stephen Tallents (GPO PR and after whom Tallents House is named), John Lennon, Edmund Dulac, and many others, some of whose names may be unfamiliar but who add to the story of Britain since 1840.

Of course many people have been omitted but in 250 very readable pages not everybody could be included.

Well worth a read.  I borrowed it from the public library, as the house is full of books and I  have not yet read more than a fifth of last year's Christmas present Masters of the Post: The Authorized History of the Royal Mail.

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272pp, Square Peg, £16.99* ISBN 978-0-224-09546-4 *Cheaper on Amazon and elsewhere.

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Royal Mail are selling the book at £11.99 - stock code VA247
Signed copies are £15.99 - stock code VA246 - postage extra in both cases.

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