Strange Machin counter sheet shifts

Minor mis-registration of colour, phosphor or iridescent printing are not uncommon, although few of the phosphor shifts have warranted much attention unless they are totally clear of the perforation hole.  Then they are described as 'short-band' foot, top, left, right as appropriate.

The same attention has not been given to shifts of the iridescent printing on security stamps although it is easier to see, especially if the iridescent ink is tinted and shiny, and shows up on the white margin of the stamps.

Melvyn D has sent some pictures taken with a USB microscope showing some quite spectactular shifts on recent stamps.  My USB 'scope doesn't have UV light, and it doesn't have Mac-compatible software although it can still be used.  But maybe I shall have to investigate some better equipment.

There are two examples of phosphor shifts on the 5p. On the first the phosphor is shifted dramatically up to the foot of the elliptical perforation, giving a 'short-band foot':

With the second, the movement is even greater, which gives only one 'short band foot' on the sheet, with all the others having interrupted phosphor - which is also shifted to the right, meaning that it is inset at left. 

 

The 10p has phosphor inset at the right, and the 20p at the left. 

What does all this suggest?  All these are ISP/Walsall printings, suggesting that quality control - for the sheets at least - is less stringent?  But similar insets have not been seen on recent Christmas stamps which are also printed by Walsall.  It's clear that Royal Mail are not too concerned about the iridescent printing - after all if these valued stamps are self-adhesive then they are from counter sheet printings, the only others being gummed from prestige stamp books.

But the important thing for phosphor is that there should be two clear bands of decent size.  After the pandemic is over they may get back to separating 1st and 2nd class mail and using the phosphor for segregation.

The other thing that these pictures demonstrate is that with the right equipment you can collect stamp variants that are not immediately obvious to the naked eye, and show them in your collections, exhibits, or in club displays (when they return) with suitable illustrations like these.  

---

Phosphor - or non-phosphor error?

We know that all defintive stamps for decades have carried two phosphor bands, except for 2nd class which have one, usually at the centre.  There haven't been any missing phosphor errors for many years as far as I can recall. 

Many people still use the traditional 'hold-to-light' method for checking short or shifted bands, especially in the summer when the real darkness necessary for a UV-lamp is in short supply.  Years ago this method was also used as a first check to find out whether the stamp had phosphor missing altogether - we could even do that in the post office and I remember looking at my first 1980 £3 Wedgwood PSB and saying to myself - "oh, they've changed the phosphor bands again" as I found the bands on the se-tenant pane shifted.   I soon shifted that on my next trip to Stampex! 

So what do we make of this:

It's a mix of stamps, the 1p and 11½p definitely se-tenant and the 14p and 11½p maybe not.  Certainly the 11½p have left bands and if the 14p is - or was - joined as a pair, then that will have 2 bands - which are not visible by this method.

Fortunately the bands are visible to the Uvitec lamp, confirming that there is nothing amiss, aside from a lack of postmark on these!   It also makes it much easier to see that the stamps are joined, at least in  pair even if it is not a block of 4.

So remember, a UV lamp is a very worthwhile investment. What good finds have you made, with or without a UV lamp?

---

Commonwealth Games booklet variants

The full set of Commonwealth Games stamps is now shown on our website, following Royal Mail's decision to put them and all products on their website shop before the embargo date.

Accompanying the set of 6 is a retail booklet containing 4 x 1st class Machin definitives and 2 x 1st class Swimming stamps.  As usual the Machins are coded MCIL M14L and the booklet is printed by Walsall Security Printers.  We are used to minor colour-registration problems on Walsall's booklets and from the examples of this booklet we have seen, they seem to have escaped this fate, although without seeing a booklet with cylinder numbers we don't know whether the almost mono-chrome special stamps are printed in 4-colour process or a reduced range of colours.

Here is the booklet itself:

However, in this booklet we have found misplaced phosphor and iridescent ink printing to make up for the often ugly mis-registered special stamps.

Booklets have been found with significant shifts of the phosphor both upwards and downwards, and with a significant shift of the iridescent layer downwards.  As these images show:

Downward shift of phosphor.  The top of the phosphor is in the Queen's head.  In more extreme examples the phosphor on the upper definitives is shifted down onto the lower ones.

Upward shift of phosphor.  The phosphor on the lower definitives is lapping onto the upper ones

In some examples the iridescent security printing is well down from the top of the design:

While stocks last these are available at our webshop, but will not be shipped until 22 July because of the issue date coinciding with holidays.

---

Football heroes stamps include more Living Legends

Royal Mail is issuing a set of stamps and a Miniature Sheet on 9 May 2013 to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of The Football Association as well as 140 years of The Scottish Football Association.

The stamps feature a ‘dream team’ of legendary footballers selected from around the United Kingdom namely Jimmy Greaves, John Charles, Gordon Banks, George Best, John Barnes, Kevin Keegan, Denis Law, Bobby Moore, Bryan Robson, Dave MacKay,  and Bobby Charlton.

Royal Mail worked very closely with the National Football Museum and with its experts, archivists and curators, to establish a listing of the key great footballers to celebrate. The football museum itself has established a Hall of Fame and the players selected were from those who were inducted into the Hall of Fame when it began.

Royal Mail also looked at the history of UK football, but applied criteria to select players whose key senior career was within the years 1963-1990s, who will be much more familiar to present day footballers than those of earlier eras, and include many players who have a cult following and widespread agreement of genius on the pitch, such as George Best.

The stamps are 30 x 32mm and the miniature sheet is 192 x 74 mm.

There will also be a prestige stamp book (details to follow) and a series of retail stamp books, the first of which contains 4 x 1st class red Machin definitives and the football stamps showing George Best and Bobby Moore.

A second retail booklet will be issued later in the year* with the John Charles and Dave Mackay stamps.  * The issue date will be subject to operational need and may be in 2014.

The England badge on the selvedge for the Bobby Moore stamp in the retail booklet is very poor - it's hanging off the shirt! (Click on the image below for a yet larger one.)


Update 13 May:
John E has reminded me that I haven't posted details of the cylinder numbers on this booklet, so here is the image of a cylinder booklet.

All W1, the 'colours' are dark red, phosphor, iridescent, magenta, cyan, yellow, black - although the iridescent and phosphor are difficult to distinguish.

Update 1 June Phosphor shifts:
Colour mis-registration on this issue is less obviously wrong, but the alignment of the phosphor patches on the cylinder is most irregular.

We have many booklets with the phosphor on the Bobby Moore stamp only dropped by up to 2mm.  Other booklets have a downward shift of the phosphor on all 6 stamps, while some booklets have phosphor short on all except the George Best stamp!  Oddly all the booklets with cylinder numbers have accurately placed phosphor. 

---

With two booklets this will also mean two six new Machin definitives, which have the M13L year code; one from the retail booklet with MCIL and five from the PSB with MPIL.  The country definitive stamps in the booklet do not have security overprints.   Incidentally this will be the first time that the three flag stamps have appeared in a way to get full catalogue status, previous versions being in the 'Celebrating' miniature sheets and Generic Smilers Sheets.

Update 12 March
We now have images of the PSB panes.  The more I look at it, the more I think this issue is a good idea gone bad. The two definitive panes have been badly designed, as to their contents and layout. Pane 1 should have had the national stamps in the corners, or at N,S,E & W.  Pane 4 has values so low (total 34p) that they should require extra stamps for a FDC! (We are awaiting a decision from Royal Mail on this.) Royal Mail have confirmed that additinal stamps to the value of 16p must be added to FDCs bearing this 34p pane.

Update 28 April
We now have the actual PSB panes, and I am disappointed to say that the two Football Heroes stamp panes are self-adhesive.  Disappointed (a) because no data on this was provided by Royal Mail in the pre-release publicity, and (b) because this means that collectors will feel they have to buy twice as many of the footballer stamps as they thought they would!  

The definitive panes are gummed, with security codes M13L MPIL on all the Machins and no security printing on the country definitives.  

According to the credits in the book, the booklet is printed by Cartor Security Print.  But a second paragraph states that the definitive panes are in gravure by Walsall, which they are not.

I've also worked out why the price of this pane is odd - the whole booklet price is £11.11

Special postmarks for this issue are shown on our website.

For the specialist collector this stamp issue rivals Dr Who in its complexity and the number of stamps.  There are 34 individual stamps, a miniature sheet, retail booklet and PSB.  The individual stamps are:

Footballers - 11 gummed, 11 self-adhesive from PSB by Cartor, 2 self-adhesive from retail booklet by Walsall.  (Total 24)
Country definitives - 4.  The three flags stamps have never had individual catalogue numbers before. The gummed Northern Ireland stamp has been printed in litho before but not by Cartor.  There are also other differences, see below. [4]
Machin definitives - 1st class self-adhesive with MCIL M13L code (the MCIL London Underground stamp has the M12L year code), 1st class gummed, 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, gummed all with MPIL M13L codes. [6]

The new Northern Ireland stamp by Cartor, as well as being yellower than the earlier one, has no microprinted date in the figure of value:

---

Diamond Jubilee Machin & Wilding from Prestige Stamp Book

I should have provided these Diamond Jubilee PSB images much earlier, my apologies to Chris who sent them on 2 June. 

The first shows clearly the MPND code on the Jubilee Machin from the 31 May PSB.  The other shows phosphor bands well clear of the perforations on the definitive pane in the booklet.   In my experience the shortness at the top is not matched by phosphor over-running the perforations at the foot of the pane, so the overall height of the phosphor band is less than the gap between the perforations.

If I could scan like this I could tell whether our stock is really as short as that!

---

Diamond Jubilee retail booklets full of errors

The Diamond Jubilee Commemorative retail booklet has been delivered and we can show these images, courtesy of Chris H.

As expected, the source code is MCND in the usual position.

Cylinder numbers W1 start above the TH (iridescent), the E+space (phosphor) and then diamond blue, black, cyan, yellow and magenta.  The diamond blue is outlined in reversed-out white as shown:

Quite a high proportion of the booklets have phosphor band short at the foot, to a greater or lesser degree.  Some are almost 1mm clear of the top of the perforation hole.  This also affects the commemorative stamp, as shown.

However, the 'invisible' phosphor is not the only registration problem that Walsall has had with this booklet as this picture shows, with a unusually large shift of the magenta:

We don't yet have the sheet stamps or the prestige books but will report on them next week.

---