Machins: it's not over until everything has been discovered!

I had thought that I had written my last post about Machin discoveries and, indeed, it may well be that someone has seen and reported this before, maybe nearly 25 years ago!

Regular contributor MM sent me this image of a clipping from an envelope purchased from Norway. Eagle-eyed readers will see that there are no values on the stamps, and that the 'postmark', dated 24 November 2002, isn't.

In fact the whole thing is printed - 'stamps', postmark, even the shadows aside the stamps.  The image of the Christmas stamp is of the 1981 18p set designed by Lucinda Blackmore (then aged 6), whilst the Machin image may be imitating the £1 value from April 1997.

I asked the Norwegian Seamen's Mission in London whether they could tell me any more (with no response received as yet), but further investigation shows that while the item of mail may have originated with them, it was actually processed IN Norway.

B-BLAD, at the right of the Christmas stamp is a marking for the Norwegian postal service, Posten Norge for a specific, lower-priority bulk mail service for periodicals and membership magazines.

So it appears that it was from a Christmas newsletter/magazine produced in the UK but posted to Norwegian addresses using the Norwegian domestic postal system.   

Royal Mail did not introduce stamp images printed onto Direct Mail envelopes until 2015 but there had been examples of stamps used on publicity material before then.  

It seems unlikely that the Seaman's Mission obtained permission from Royal Mail to use the copyrighted Machin image as their rules say that stamps must be used unaltered, apart from overlapping of different images.

Another one, closer to home 

Although I headed this 'closer to home' it originated almost as far away as it could, in Warrnambool a city in Victoria, Australia, used on the council's recycling flyer.  

It's 'closer to home' because the person who sent me this picture was convinced that the image was taken from our website.  OK, it could have been taken from any other, but the black border and placing of the coloured chevron against the perforations appears to be exactly the same.

 

If you have any other pre-2015 examples of stamps being used on marketing or other mail, please let me know.

 

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More shades of King Charles II PPIs and alternative postage.

A post last September showed a number of shades for the 2nd class pre-printed stamps used on postage paid impressions (PPIs), and that continues including these two using the same C9 licence 10017 and the same return address (so the same mailing house or the same client).

Pre-printed 2nd class mail-shots for C9 licence number 10017

My thanks to WU for the above and also for this example where a different account has been used and the imprinted stamp has been overlabelled with one showing a totally different account number.  The C9 license number is either 10031 or 10081, and the new label has Account Postage number AC05353770077.   This is used by Fisheye Opticians.

C9 preprinted stamp overlabelled with an 'Account Postage' label.

UPDATE 22 May 2024: My thanks to JMacL for another 2nd class example, this time with account HQ104259.

2nd class preprinted stamp PPI with used by account HQ104259.

Note: A number of people have asked for examples of these definitive stamp pre-printed envelopes. We actually get very few here: most of the images are just that - images sent by readers but not my scans of actual examples we hold.

I'll be pleased to add other examples - has anybody had a 1st class pre-printed stamp on  a mailshot yet?

 

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Did you ever win a Reader's Digest Prize Competition? Examples of their mailings with Machin stamps.

I suspect many readers are old enough to remember Reader's Digest (RD) Prize Competitions. The company and competitions continue, which may explain why it is difficult to find on the world wide web anything other than the stamp coils which were included in their mailings from 1981.

The mailings were always offering either one-offs or series of their products – books, records, etc – with the strapline of 'Your chance to win....' various amounts. RD was criticised in the US for misleading advertising and in the UK the Advertising Standards Authority determined that recipients could be led to believe that purchasing the product offered would increase their chances of winning the prize. I think originally the addressee would have had to pay to return the prize card numbers, or maybe there were Business Reply paid envelopes. 

 

Item (c) reverse of card: List of prizes available on typical Reader's Digest mailing.

The Post Office had, before decimalisation and afterwards, produced multi-value coils of Machin definitives which were dispensed from vending machines inside and outside Post Office branches, for one-shilling or (decimalised) 5p or 10p. Four different strips were produced for vending machines, with three different stamp combinations for 10p.

In January 1981 the cheapest 2nd class postage rate was increased from 10p to 11½p, rendering coils from the machines insufficient for a single letter, and there were no more coils produced for this purpose.

However a coil containing many strips of 4 stamps valued at 11½p (SG X929l) was made available to Reader's Digest. These strips of stamps were mounted on card (with a non-permanent band of gum) so that addressees had their postage prepaid. Again, the card suggested that the stamps would help to get the responses returned to the company – although even those who did not respond were winners, at least to the value of the 2nd class postage given away!

 

Item (a): Reader's Digest 'Autumn Windfall' Prize Draw cover and card, 12½p strip SG X924l.

First used in June 1981 the 11½p strip [2½p+3p+3p+3p] was soon noticed by collectors and in September it was made available from the Philatelic Bureau, and later from other Post Offices (Gibbons' Concise). Later multi-value coils were sold from the Philatelic Bureau and Philatelic Counters.

Increased postage rates

As postage rates increased so the value of the stamps provided needed to increase, and this caused a change in the combination of stamps in the strips. 

The 12½p strip is shown above with ½p and 3x4p issued on 30 December 1981

13p [1p + 3x4p] on 14 August 1984
14p [2p + 3x4p] on 5 September 1988
15p [3p* +3x4p] on 10 October 1989
17p [5p + 3x4p] on 27 November 1990
18p [2 each 4p, 5p] on 1 October 1991, and
19p [4p + 3x5p] on 31 January 1995. 

Few of these dates coincided with the rate change: some are earlier for preparing mailings at the new rate, some are later.

* This is the original source of the type II 3p magenta (SG X930c) with narrower figure of value. It appeared in January 1992 in sheets.

These are the cards and covers we had, but all are now sold:
none of the covers has the original letters, offers etc, only the cards with stamps mounted on.  I am confident that these cards are contained within the relevant covers.

a. X924l - 12½p on card in yellow-brown cover for 'Autumn Windfall' prize draw, above, price £1.20

b. X925l - 13p on card in reddish-brown cover for 'Christmas Bonanza' prize draw.

c. X925l - 13p on yellow & blue card for '£165,000 Giveaway'.

d. X933l - 17p on yellow & blue card for '£235,000 Prize Away'

e. X933m - 18p on card in black printed manilla cover for 'Strike it Rich' prize draw.

Item b - reverse of cover - Price £1.20

Item b - addressee side of cover

Item b - stamps on card

SG X925l - 13p strip on card for Reader's Digest 'Christmas Bonanza' prize draw.

Item c - stamps on card - Price £1.20

SG X925l - 13p strip (with separation in a different order) on yellow & blue card for '£165,000 Giveaway'

 

Item d - the adhesive strip has dried out leaving the stamps unattached to the card (there is residue of the adhesive on the back of the stamps - Price £1.50

SG X933l - 17p strip on yellow & blue card for '£235,000 Prize Away'

Item e - stamps on card in cover - Price £1.50

SG X933m - 18p strip on card in black printed manilla cover for Reader's Digest 'Strike it Rich' prize draw.

If you wish to buy any of these five items, please email as soon as possible so that they can be set aside for you.  Postage will be extra at usual economic rates.
All are now sold!

We're away next week and return to a week in which the diary is already full.  As such, please note that we may not reply and are unlikely to send any of these out until nearly the end of April.

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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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What's the cost of 1st & 2nd class mail? It depends who you are.

We all know that a basic 2nd class letter costs 68p to post whilst 1st class is 95p - the biggest difference there has ever been, a margin easily made up by using an old 27p stamp.  But it isn't the same price for everybody and your incoming mail can make an interesting postal history collection.

Large business users can get big discounts for bulk mailing, more for pre-sorting, more for having a sorting barcode built into the address.  We'll never know the rate paid for most direct mail that comes through our door because most of it is handled by another company with Royal Mail only involved for the final delivery.

Franked (or Meter) Mail does show the price paid.  In the past this was generally the same rate as paying with stamps, and may still be now, but there are still discounts to be had and these produce a range of prices shown below.

2nd class 68p - Letter 51p, Advanced Letter 48p

2nd class letter 51p, 2nd Advanced Letter 48p - September 2022

1st class 95p - Letter 78p, Advanced Letter 75p

1st class letter 78p, 1st Advanced Letter 75p.

 2nd class Large

2nd class 250g letter £1.31 rather than £1.65 for using stamps.

 

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Charity mailings use 2021 Christmas stamps.

As we reported in previous years, the Christmas stamps* are generally made available for bulk mailers to use on their fundraising efforts, whether they be charities or mail-order companies.

* It's been pointed out that this is open to misinterpretation!  What I should have written was the 'Christmas stamp designs are made available, as shown below.  My apologies - and thanks to JE.

My thanks to JF for supplying this scan from a mailing from the PDSA (People's Dispensary for Sick Animals) latest appeal, which uses the 2nd class stamp.

Direct mail from the PDSA using the 2021 Christmas 'digital stamp', license C9 10017.

If anybody has any others used this winter, or variants on the Machin definitive, please send them in for publication.  Thanks.

UPDATE 10 December: My thanks to a different MM who sent this picture of two more examples.

Small cover from Hidden Hearing;  Larger cover from Careco

Update 12 December: JE has sent these three examples showing how printers are having trouble colour matching the stamp design.

Digital 2021 Christmas stamps in three different colour shades, from the Salvation Army (C9 10018, Brightpost), Bonusprint (C9 10031, Onepost) and Museum Selection (also C9 10031).

JE also provides this picture illustrating the earlier pre-digital situation when stamps were provided at a discount.  It seems as if this was for an international appear, as the total face value of the 1st, 2nd & 2p stamps totals £1.17, the rate for letters up to 20g to Europe.

Direct Mailshot from PETA in 2014 with postage of £1.17 - the 20g rate for Europe.

 

 

 

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Latest Direct Mailing PPI examples

We have some more examples of digital stamp postage paid impressions to report, including the rarely seen 1st class Large.

Not all of these are for fund-raising purposes: the 2nd class Machin one from VisionExpress was and individual one reminding me that I should have my eyes tested - probably one of thousands sent to their customers who have kept away during various lockdowns.  (Licence C9 10020)

The other one in the first image is 2020's 2nd class Christmas issue from medicine supplier Healthspan (licence HQ23777).

The other image, supplied by DL, shows a flyer from the Wood Green Animals Charity, and uses the 1st class Large letter stamp, using licence HQ11348.  These are reported very occasionally and if you are adding them to your Machin collection they may be difficult to find.   

1st class Large digital stamp on charity mailing, 2021.

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Charity mailings include 2020 2nd class Christmas pre-printed stamp

We've reported on many different pre-printed postage impressions often using the current Christmas stamp and this year is no exception.

My thanks to Kiwieditor on Twitter who showed this latest version of Royal Mail's digital postage (or PPI) shown here.  This is from the Royal British Legion (RBL), with a return address of Chippenham.

2nd class Christmas 2020 postage paid impression - digital postage from Royal British Legion.

UPDATE:

JF reports on the same stamp being used on a charity funding request from Royal Air Forces Association.

In this case the wavy line 'cancellation' appears to be grey-black compared with the black of the RBL one.  (The ink-jet on this one is because it was misdelivered and reposted.)
 

UPDATE 30 December

We've actually had one delivered here!  This is a postcard from one of the lesser-known subscription diet companies.  This doesn't have a Condition 9 (C9) Accesss code, but HQ104259.  

UPDATE 20 January

My thanks to H for this example of the White Rabbit Alice in Wonderland 2nd class stamp used by Dexters, an estate agency with over 100 branches in London.  DP reports that this is also used by Snellers Estate Agents with the same C9 licence number.

White Rabbit Alice in Wonderland 2nd class pre-printed stamp winter 2020/21.

 

UPDATE 5 February.

Another example from the wider family, is this one from Healthspan with licence HQ 23777, using the 2020 2nd class Christmas stamp.

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2018 Christmas stamps available to direct mailers as PPIs

We've previously mentioned the use of the 2nd class and 2nd class Large Machin design, and the Alice in Wonderland stamps printed on to mailshots as Postage Paid Indicators.

Now RW has sent this picture of this year's mailings from Sainsbury's supermarket which uses the new 2nd class design on their mailshots.

Update: Thanks to RH for this one from the charity Shelter.

 

JE has sent another example of the 2018 design, "The attached example bears the downstream access licence C9 10020 of Citipost Mail, and mailing was from Serious Readers, purveyors of expensive reading lamps. Of course, the 'stamp' does not need to be cancelled, and the pre-printed wavy lines should stop Integrated Mail Processors from applying a cancellation, but in this case the Preston machine sorting this batch of mail did apply a full cancellation - at 00.03am on the day of delivery."

 

I had forgotten that PD had sent this example of the Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter usage on a mailshot from Smyths Toys back in September, the same design as they used last year but in a darker shade.  Both advertise a six-week campaign from mid-November to Christmas. (smythstoys.com)

Update 3 December:  Thanks to TR who has sent this example of the rarely-seen 2nd Large imprinted stamp on a mailshot from Tru Diamond with license 10082 in the Condition 9 access system.

And Barclaycard have a campaign which uses a particularly dark-skied version of the 2nd class Christmas stamp (a bit like outside Norvic towers now!)

UPDATE 3 January:  This one from Cottages.com using C9 license 10031 was waiting for us when we got back after Christmas.  The colour of the stamp is much better than that for Barclaycard:

There will probably be other users of this design at this time of year, so I look forward to seeing what else you find.

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Take another look at the holiday mail - surprises abound!

If, like me, you don't get round to sorting the Christmas card envelopes that you receive yourself, and from family and friends' hordes until some time in January you should look out for one that is not all it seems.

We all get a lot of red envelopes at Christmas, addressed in a variety of styles.  This one looks like any other unless you really look at it.  The two rows of numbers are the clue, and if you look closely at the apparently 'written' address it is printed with an ink-jet or laser printer in 'joined-up' script.  Look closer at the stamp and you will see that it is the 2015 coil, this time sent courtesy of the Holiday Property Bond.

For me, tearing the stamp off without looking at it was a silly mistake, espcially as JG had emailed me on 5 January with this picture of the stamp on the HPB letter sent to his wife over Christmas :-(

The other thing that you may see on your Christmas post - if it is postmarked at all - are examples of the old Universal-style postmarks.  These ought to be a better clue as to where the item was posted than the 'area' ink-jet postmarks.  (I was told that some mail from North Norfolk was sent to Chelmsford's South East Anglia MC) instead of being processed in Norwich, or even Peterborough as is often the case.

Here's an example of the Chelmsford Universal machine with the Please Post Early 'Snowman' slogan used on 17 December - along with the normal South East Anglia MC 'Last Posting Dates' slogan.   Over on the Stampboards forum some members are recording their finds - but they are few and far between.   So if you have any contribute please pop over - or, if forums are not your thing, send me your image and I'll add it to the records there and for the British Postmark Society.

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More on coil stamps used by Direct Mailers

As Royal Mail are no longer producing coils of 500 or 1000 we had some debate on the original post about which Post Office branches still have vending machines (see comments on the original article).

Now there may be another explanation.  We recently received a mailshot from WCRF-UK (World Cancer Research Fund), with this stamp on:

The vertical sides are cut, suggesting that it comes from a coil, and the top and bottom are  cut slightly on the slant, indicating it was applied by a machine which cut each stamp from the coil.  There are no security features, and it is pre-Pricing in Proportion, ie pre-2006.  As it happens, looking through a box of odds and ends I found another from the same charity, and it was exactly the same - but that was in with some covers I put away in 2004! 

So a direct mailing house, or the charity if they have a stamp-fixing machine, are still using the stamps from a very similar source to that used 8 years ago!  Difficult to believe that they are still using the same roll, so they must have bought a considerable number back then.

Either that or Royal Mail, when they were scraping the bottom of the barrel to get stamps out to customers before the April price rise, found some of these and sold them instead of modern security versions.

Whatever the reason, it pays to keep looking at your post and kiloware, because some odd security versions may pop up yet!

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Delivered by Royal Mail

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the plan by Royal Mail to remind householders just who delivers their mail, by the incorporation of a new slogan alongside the postage paid indicator (PPI).

It seems that Argos have been very quick off the mark and are already using the new-style PPI as shown below.  Thanks to Dominic for this picture, received today.

UPDATE 6 July:

Three different examples seen today.  The 1st and 2nd from with License number COVENTRY 909 are from the same mailing house for different customers.  I though the square design had been abandoned by Royal Mail some time ago, but here it is with yet another Coventry license CV24385

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Despite the fact that we are still waiting for the Charles Dickens stamps due next Tuesday, we are closing the office until the beginning of July to take a well-earned rest and recharge the batteries.


Orders through our shop (www.norphil.co.uk/catalog) will be processed and stock reserved as usual.  There will be a special bonus for order number 2000.

And we may accidentally see emails while I'm using the iPhone looking for ideal places to rest and eat.  Enjoy the summer and the rest of Euro2012 !

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