Varities and retouches on Machins from booklets.

We don't see them like this any more!  I found a small stash of booklets with varieties which can be added to collections at little cost - except for the missing phosphor!

Some examples:

10p booklet FA3, miscut with 6p at right.

10p booklet FA1, missing shading under necklace

10p booklet FA3 with 'SE Asia' inset on rate table.

10p booklet FA11, Beard flaw on 1p.

See these and more on List 4, download it here.

Orders can be taken from all or any lists and combined.

Thank you for looking.

---

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?

---

Mind the gap! Tariff FDCs stamps quite different to sheet stamps

It has been well known for many years that the definitive stamps applied to Royal Mail standing order FDCs are produced in mutli-value side-ways delivered coils, usually with a different direction of print (DOP), to those sold in sheets.  This has been of interest mainly to extreme specialists who can see and therefore monitor and collect DOP differences.

I don't usually obtain those FDCs but lacking time, and needing to add the £2.25 M18L stamp to some, I ordered from Royal Mail unused FDCs with stamps affixed: one of the benefits of dealer registration means that we can do this and then have any postmark applied.

Looking at the returned covers today, I noticed that the gaps in the U-shaped security slits on the £2.25 were smaller than on the other four values. I quickly checked my new sheet stamps, and found that the four new values on from the coil printing on the FDC have gaps which are quite enormous compared with anything else we have seen, and totally different to those sold in sheets:

Needless to say these are not available mint on backing paper and are only available unused* on Royal Mail FDCs which have not been postmarked.

UPDATE 5 April: Royal Mail have confirmed that the stamps on the FDC were printed by ISP (so Walsall as they are gravure, one assumes).   Some had thought that they were printed by DLR or even Enschede.

They won't, of course, have separate numbers in the mainstream catalogues although Deegam may record the distinction.  I'll record this as a note in our Checklist.

* Anybody who is interested in having one of these should contact me by email only as soon as possible.  Thank you. 

---

Royal Mail 'Employee Gift' stamps from a totally different printing!

Every year, Royal Mail employees receive a Christmas Card from the management, and a gift of 50 x 1st class Christmas stamps.  I had expected that they would get the equivalent of a whole sheet, ie 25 religious and 25 competition as shown in our earlier post, but the reality is a big surprise!

In fact, according to sales lists on eBay, the card shows the design of the 1st class competition winner stamps, and contains 50 of those stamps.  All of the sheets have either the left or right margin cut back so that the sheet fits in the card, but far from showing just the cylinder number and traffic lights as expected, some sheets also have a sale-by date and printing date and sheet number!

This means that they have been cut from sheets containing 50  x competition stamps, that is, a different printing to the ones sold to collectors and Post Office customers.

This is the sheet we showed earlier:

As you can see, the printing date and sheet number is in the top right selvedge.  The Sale Date is in the top left margin of these sheets, both being alongside the religious stamps.

This is what has been found on eBay, images cropped to show just one half-sheet.  First the lower parts:

And now the unexpected upper parts:

---

Stamp Collecting Isn't Dull, But Phosphor Has Become Duller

During the last year the phosphor used for British stamps has been changed, and I have been asked to write about which stamps exist.

I understand that although the basic composition remains the same, the phosphor ink from the new supplier is not as bright as that used previously.  (I've been told that on some examples of stamps or Post and Go Faststamps the brighter phosphor had taken on a yellow tinge over time, which may be the reason for the change of supplier !)

First things first, this change was made in the autumn of 2015, so all printings with 2016 year codes have dull phosphor.  The following stamps with 2015 year codes exist with both bright and dull phosphor.   In the case of counter sheets all printings after the date shown are dull. 

Counter Sheets
1p             05/11/15
2p             28/09/15
5p             06/11/15
10p           30/09/15
20p           01/10/15
£1             12/11/15

1st purple     18/09/15
1st Large      01/10/15
2nd class      29/09/15
2nd Large     03/09/15

1st Signed    13/11/15

Business Sheets  - these exist with and without SBP

2nd class    

2nd Large

1st class

1st Large

Booklets:  information awaited.

Because I have concentrated on year codes as and when the arrive or are discovered, I have not kept track of whether our supplies have bright or dull phosphor.   A later version of the Norvic Security Machin Checklist will have this information when it is finalised.

At this stage I cannot supply specific types for any of the 2015 issues.

---

You thought it was all over, but it isn't - Another 2012 Gold Medal Surprise !

Since Great Britain hotsed the 2012 Olympics and overnight produced stamps for each British Gold Medal Winner, there have been a number of surprising 'errors' and possible misprints, reported here.

As regular readers will remember, the stamps were issued in miniature sheets of 6, printed on an A4 sheet of 4x MS, (and these were printed in press sheets of 4x A4).

So this came as a bit of a surprise today:

(To show the perforations as they did not show well)

On eBay from seller 4chonts this is a roll of 1000 miniature sheets, each of 6 stamps, which are listed at £3,200 or 53p each compared with the 60p original price and current 63p value.

The stamp shown was the 10th in the series and one of the 6 issued on 5 August 2012.

I suspect this is a roll that would have been printed for machine application to Royal Mail first day covers. Such coils are common, for self-adhesive definitives (which are printed in one multi-value coil, with sideways printing rather than N-S), and commemoratives including post and go issues.

Royal Mail do not publicise this sort of printing and the stamps are not available to collectors or dealers (with one exception) but the system is well known.

However, there was never any evidence that the Gold Medal stamps were produced in this way as well as by the 6 regional printers contracted to achieve rush-digitally-printed overnight delivery to Post Offices for sale the next day.

So many questions !

Was this done for each medal, and for the paralympics?

Were these coils supplied to Handstamp Centres, which normally carry small stocks of stamps in order to replace damaged or wrongly cancelled FDCs/cards?

How many printers were involved? Was it any of the 6, or a different printer entirely?

Where has this one been for the last three years?

Are there any other gold medal coils ? !

---

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.

---

The Holly and the Ivy - and the Poppy: mistakes at POs lead to some scarce stamps

I reported in the middle of November on the Post and Go error at Farringdon, in which the blue Winter Greenery stamps were loaded into their Wincor-Nixdorf machine, producing 1st class to Worldwide 60g on Mistletoe and Ivy stamps with single phosphor bands. 

It seems that it was a case of both The Holly and The Ivy from supplies department as both designs were sent to all Post and Go offices including the few remaining Wincor offices (although Perth PO maintain that they only received the Ivy- 2nd class - rolls).

Earlier the (solo) Remembrance Poppy stamps were loaded into one NCR machine at Norwich in both 1st and 2nd class slots.  It was several days before this was noticed by a collector, and the '2nd class' roll was quickly used to produce Collectors Sets (ie pairs: 2nd class and 2nd Large) and a few 2nd class Open Value stamps.  How many had already been used by the general public and for what services is impossible to know, but it will be worth looking out for them in kiloware.

---

Stamps Update: Winter Greenery Post and Go Faststamps

Winter Greenery Faststamps will have taken many collectors by surprise because there are only four designs instead of 6, and collectors who only have access to Wincor-Nixdorf machines will find that there are probably only 2!  But this does make the collection cheaper, with a basic set of 4 now costing only £2.30 (although the bureau pack is £2.81), and a full set of 16 from NCR machines having a face value of £17.36.

The Bureau Pack contains 1st, 1st Large, 2nd and 2nd Large stamps.

From reports received so far it would seem that all offices, including the BPMA, received the new stamps. These are the NCR Collectors sets:

Of course they are also available with open values (used on first day).

These are the sets from Wincor-Nixdorf machines:

A number of branches still have Wincor machines, I am waiting for a list from PO Ltd.  The latest I have heard of is Perth.

Farringdon Post Office loaded 2nd class into their Wincor-Nixdorf machine.  Can we blame them for making this mistake?  No, central stores should never have sent them to Wincor branches because they couldn't be used.  I know that Farringdon wasn't the only office to receive 2nd class in error.  Thanks to Dominic and Mike for pictures:

Incidentally, a detailed report on the developments at Farringdon suggests that individual collectors each bought one or a few sets, with nobody getting a bulk supply, mainly because most of them didn't realise the error in time.  Sadly one of the buyers spilled the bins to the staff and the machine was taken out of service until the roll could be changed.  Nothing yet on eBay, which tends to confirm the above accounts.

Balham Post Office was selling the 1st class type from their Wincor-Nixdorf machine a day early on 12th.  Listed on eBay they close on 19 November).   Update, per a comment from a reader: this error was Balham's swansong as the machine was removed today (14th).

The stamps were also in use at the BPMA, presumably replacing Poppies and the 2nd class Machin.  Thanks to Chris for this:

Stamps - but not BPMA or Farringdon - will be in our webshop on Monday.

UPDATE 18 March 2015
I'm sorry not to have reported this at the time, but for the record the Winter Greenery stamps were available in Edinburgh's Princes Street Mall Post Office on 12th November, one day early.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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!

---