Prestige Stamp Book errors - another duplicated page

In the period 2006 - 2009 several Prestige Stamp Books were found with duplicated stamp pages or other errors.  The situation was so bad that people came to expect an error as the norm, rather than something exceptional.

Now a collector sent us a picture of what is, as far as we know, a previously unreported duplication, in the World of Invention PSB from March 2007.

This PSB was bought at a stamp fair recently and the duplication was not revealed until the collector was studying the book at home! 

Earlier reports are on our website, because the blog hadn't started when they were discovered. 

Missing Gold error on Prestige Book Victoria Cross stamps

Duplicate pages in Machin Anniversary Prestige Book

Duplicate pages in Regional Stamps Anniversary Prestige Book

Duplicate pages in Charles Darwin Prestige Book

The most spectacular and valuable error was on the Victoria Cross book where the missing gold affects the Queen's head and value -

Books sold at auction have realised over £10,000; the most recent reported in Stamp and Coin Mart (Feb 2013) was handled by Grosvenor and made £11,934.

The most prolific set of errors was on the Machin book.  Examples exist with any of the stamp pages duplicated, but perhaps the oddest - given it's heavy card composition - was duplication of the front cover!

Quality control on make up (if not on print quality) has improved greatly since 2009 with no similar errors reported.  But we are always eager to report new finds!

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Make-up errors in Prestige Stamp Books.

It's some time since we reported on errors in Prestige Stamp Books, although at one time they were very common.

Mark Botting of Eric Arthur Stally Stamp Books has sent some examples which he hasn't seen before. Some of these predate not only our blog but the website, but one would have been included had we been aware of it.

First is the 1990 London Life (SG DX11) with text page L4 duplicated:

1990 London Life PSB with text page duplicated.

Second is the next book, Agatha Christie (DX12) with interleaf L3 misplaced after pane 3.

1991 Agatha Christie PSB with misplaced text page.

Lastly, the issue which we did cover on the website, RAF Uniforms with stamp pane 3 (Spitfire & Red Arrows) omitted.

2008 RAF Uniforms PSB with stamp pane 3 omitted.

If you find any other PSB - or stamp - errors, we will be pleased to report them.

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New duplication on Greenwich Observatory PSB.

I think it's over six months since we had a new prestige stamp book error, so it's my pleasure to show this duplicated pane in the Royal Observatory book, courtesy of JF.

It's difficult to take a photo of such errors as there is a risk of damaging the stamps, so this has been slightly enhanced.  As you can see, there are two copies of pane 2.

Duplicated pane 2 in Royal Observatory prestige stamp book.

 

UPDATE:

My thanks to the new owner of this booklet (MB) for a better picture

 

 

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Look before you Break - a sorry tale of a Prestige Book error

Over the years we have been able to report - thanks to the generosity of our readers - very many errors in the make-up of Prestige Stamp Books, including these:

Harry Potter PSB duplicate pane

Star Trek duplicated non-stamp page.

Another duplicated non-stamp page.

Duplicate non-stamp page.

Missing definitive pane.

Today a comment was made on an earlier post:

I've broken up a copy of the xxxxxxx PSB to find the miniature sheet page missing. Has this been reported by anyone else?

As I have already deconstructed the booklet and it is 18 months past its first day of issue I have presumed no chance of a replacement form the Royal Mail, just wanted to make others aware there are errors out there.

I doubt the writer will ever do this again, without checking and double-checking, preferably as soon as he possibly can after he receives the book.  

And the lesson to everybody else is to do the same thing, not only to PSBs but everything else you receive from Royal Mail, from the Post Office, or even from dealers - we do occasionally overlook things!  

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Cutting error on X-Men Prestige Book

It is some time since anybody reported an error on a Prestige Stamp Book and most of those were duplicated or missing pages.

This time it is a mis-cut, causing two stamps to be damaged, from the X-Men book.  This is a scan on a white background of a photocopy so apologies for the quality. 

The bottom row of stamps has been cut through, almost reaching the barcode and trimming off the lower perforations.  The white line at the top is where the cut should have been.  As the rest of the pages in the booklet were normal, this is a case of sheet of definitive panes being misaligned downwards.

Mis-cut definitive pane from X-Men Prestige Stamp Book.

UPDATE 29 November 2023 From the MBPC website:

Mark Botting has now purchased the book containing this error, and it has been discovered that the rest
of the book is also mis-severed.

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My third string - a different Commonwealth.

Thirty Years ago - life was so different, especially in the Soviet Union

1989 was a year of turmoil from Communist China to Eastern Europe, from Tienaman Square to the Berlin Wall, via Poland, Hungary, Czecholsovakia and Roumania, and into the Soviet Union, starting with the 300,000-strong 'Singing Revolution' in the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR).

There were insurrections in the Azerbaijan, Moldavia, Tajik SSRs and Lithuania declared independence in March - independence from the USSR - it was almost unbelievable, and it was resisted by Moscow.  Estonia and then Latvia followed Lithuania, the two Germanys were united, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin bounced onto the world scene as he was elected first president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

Further east, Iraq invaded Kuwait, Armenia declared independence from the USSR, and at home Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister and the Channel Tunnel linked France and the UK.  Interesting times, but most interesting for collectors with a wide view was not the joint issue of a set of stamps marking the Channel Tunnel, but what was happening in the Soviet Union over the next few years.

The USSR, CIS, FSU.
All over eastern Europe the fall of communism continued, not least in the USSR where, one after another, the Soviet Socialist Republics declared that they wanted independence from Moscow.  The USSR collapsed and was dissolved on 26 December 1991.  What followed was, for a period, The Commonwealth of Independent States.

But for those states, and their peoples, who had either demanded independence or had it thrust upon them, the troubles were only just beginning. The centralised control over the economy of the Soviet Union meant that the economies of many of the constituent republics had been founded on a single or few industries, with all the market for their products being controlled from Moscow. With the loss of this central control and the loss of raw material supplies from other republics, the new states were now fighting inflation by setting up their own central banks and printing their own banknotes, which created inflation. This caused all prices, including postage rates, to increase, and stamps – and the means to print them - were in short supply. Provisional stamps and surcharges proliferated. The confusion also allowed individuals to create their own free-market economy - and stamps to sell to the west.

Meanwhile in the west.
As usual I visited the big London Stamp Exhibitions.  Stampex, StampWorld '90.  There were also big events held at Wembley in at least 1995-97.  As usual I bought a few stamps, but mostly browsed the boxes of covers, looking for the unusual and cheap, because I favoured quantity over quality.  Yes, it may not be the best way of building a collection, but if you are starting something new, then buying contemporary non-philatelic material was really quite cheap in those days.

It was at one of these that I chanced upon a shoe-box full of c6-size envelopes, mostly from "Russia' but some from Albania and other east European countries. Like many I had learned the Cyrillic alphabet at school, even though I never learned Russian.  Picking out covers from the Baltic States was easy: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia had bright new stamps, although Latvia had overprinted some Soviet definitives.  These seemed a good find.  But the gem, which sparked my long-term interest - almost an obsession for a while - with this area, was this unstamped postal stationery cover.

Provisional postage from Kazakstan to India 1992 (senders address at lower right).

This has several attractions: (1) it is to India, rather than to the UK or north America; (2) it is from Kazakhstan (Республика Казахстан); (3) the postage is paid by a TP (Taxe Perçue) marking on a small duplicated label.  Although the value is written on the label, it still qualifies in many ways as a stamp.

And so I veered away from GB stamps, in the main, and acquired as much knowledge as I could about this area.  I had never collected 'Russian' stamps - those of the USSR, so the whole area was new to me.

Without the web

But how did you do research before the World Wide Web was established - Tim Berners-Lee only produced the first written proposal for the World Wide Web in 1989, and the internet was in its infancy.  Who remembers 'newsgroups', such as rec.collecting.stamps ?


It's difficult to imagine now, not opening up a web browser (ok, you have one permanently open), and tapping into the URL field a subject that you want to research.  Now, most browsers will give you a google-created list of webpages covering your field.

Then you had to look for discussions already taking place, and read, and maybe ask a question, or just post your own and hope that somebody would answer it - and all this was on a dial-up modem connection!

I had this sort of thing, provisional, typewritten labels from Ukraine, postally used(?):

 

Eventually I was part of a worldwide network of similarly-interested people, but still email and webpages were not widespread.  To further my studies of the provisionals of Ukraine, I purchased a groundbreaking 270-page handbook (and that's only volume 1) full of illustrations.  However this was produced in eastern Germany, and the text was in German.

It included copies of many 'official' documents from postal officials in the 25 regions of the country - translated into German (above right).

Best of all it included postage rates from 1 January 1991 to December 1993: eight rates in this short period.

Translation
Translation was not easy - and I like languages!  To get the basics I did a term of Russian at a local evening class.  Like English, Cyrillic script letters are quite different to capitals, but more so!  The script т is actually the letter T, which would be written as a small т if written upright!  Now we have google translate and although entering Cyrillic is a pain, at least German is easy enough!

Oh and if you think that is difficult, here are extracts of other languages, in their own script:

• Armenian: Անկախ պետությունների Համագործակցություն (ԱՊՀ);  (APH)
• Azerbaijani: Müstəqil Dövlətlər Birliyi (MDB)
• Belarusian: Садружнасць Незалежных Дзяржаў (СНД), (SND)
• Georgian: დამოუკიდებელი სახელმწიფოების თანამეგობრობა
• Kazakh: Тәуелсіз Мемлекеттер Достастығы (ТМД), (TMD)
• Kyrgyz: Көз каранды эмес мамлекеттердин шериктештиги (КМШ),  (KMŞ)
• Moldovan: Comunitatea Statelor Independente (CSI)
• Russian: Содружество Независимых Государств (СНГ),  (SNG)
• Tajik: Иттиҳоди Давлатҳои Мустақил (ИДМ),  (IDM)
• Turkmen: Garaşsyz döwletleriň arkalaşygy
• Uzbek: Мустақил Давлатлар Ҳамдўстлиги (МДҲ),  (MDH)

(Moldovan is like Roumanian (and hence Latin), Uzebek, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Kazak, Turkmen and Azerbaijani are Turkic languages but some use a Turkic variation of Cyrillic!)


My contacts were in the USA, Australia, Canada, Holland, Germany, Ukraine, Siberia, Turkmenistan, and in this country.  But there were not many of us and resources were few.  I joined the British Society for Russian Philately and the American society Rossica.  The drawback to these societies was that whilst there was interest in all periods, the majority were interested in imperial Russia and the USSR period.  But through the BSRP I met and kept in contact with a collector and publisher from Minsk, Belarus, whose website continues to provide useful information to collectors to this day.

One collector in the US formed a new group to study just the 'New Republics', not only the 15 from the USSR but also those which formed out of Yugoslavia some years later.  But he was photocopying and posting all his material.  It was unsustainable in that form and he abandoned the distribution of information in 1995. 


As I pull back from dealing in newer Great Britain, and move to older definitives, my thoughts are on my other two main passions, modern British Postal History, and the Former Soviet Union (FSU).  I think I have more covers for the latter, but both are barely organised.  There is much to do, and for those who are interested I shall be putting more modern postal history on the accompanying blog.  I shall probably add more FSU material to the website, rather than start a third blog, but I'm open to suggestions!


So if you have anything to contribute on either topic, please do write to the email address at top right.  Illustrations should be in jpg/jpeg/png format (not pdfs, please), and no more than 300 dpi for full covers (higher for highlights, of course).

Next - On The Collector's Bookshelf.

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Spectacular perforation error on Lord Mayor's Pane!!

Previously we have reported many errors in Prestige Books involving duplicate panes, most notably on the 2007 Machin Anniversary book, which exists with each of the panes duplicated in different books.

But now for something completely different. A collector in Hampshire bought the Treasures of the Archive PSB to prepare his own FDCs and found to his amazement that the Lord Mayor's pane of 4 x 20p stamps - the lowest value pane in the book - was doubly perforated! The effect of the mis-perf is that the vertical perforations are continuous and the stamps are only held in place by the horizontal teeth.

It's well known that these are printed in larger press-sheets (of 12-18, we think) so as usual, we'd be interested to know of any others that have been found, so that the finder has some idea of the scarcity of the error.

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So what do the sheet grid marks really mean?

Although many collectors may not know it, special stamps are still available from 'guttered' sheets. That is, printed sheets have (at least) two panes which are divided along the gutter for distribution to counters.

In recent years Royal Mail has copied the US practice of having a grid in the margin, divided into 4 or 6 squares, one of which has a dot in it, indicating the position of the pane in the overall sheet.

This is how some dealers are able to sell gutter pairs, although when the gutter is vertical between two different sets of 5 stamps, that makes for a long gutter strip! This is a view of part of three double-sheets:



It isn't easy to see in this but the grid positions are:

Upper sheet: position 2 - position 3
Middle sheet: position 3 - position 1
Lower sheet: position 1 - position 2

You can see it more clearly here:



Now, if the panes are printed in three positions horizontally, one would expect that one pane (say position 1) would be guillotined off for counter sheets, leaving the other two for philatelic distribution. As the print run would produce more double-panes than would be necessary for philatelic distribution, a large number of the pairs of panes 2+pane 3 would also be guillotined for distribution to post offices.

So why have we got all three possible combinations? We have -

Pane 1 + pane 2 (lowest)
Pane 2 + pane 3 (uppermost in this picture), and
Pane 3 + pane 1 (centre).

Is the cylinder circumference in fact 6 panes round, with positions 1, 2 & 3 duplicated?
Does the grid mean anything at all?
Should we revisit previous grid markings - including for definitive and country stamps - to review what they mean?

Please leave your suggestions as comments!

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In the absence of comments I'll suggest a fourth possibility - in fact more like a probability:
There are three panes to a cylinder with a gutter between each, but they are cut into sheets of 2 panes - 1+2, 3+1, 2+3, 1+2 ... etc.

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Amazing Prestige Stamp Book Errors - the latest episode.

Ever year, though not every issue, we report different types of error on Prestige Stamp Books: missing panes, duplicate panes, inverted pane, perforation errors, miscuts, and so on.

But we've never had anything quite like the one in the image that was sent to me today.

Churchill PSB definitive pane on Tallents House FDC - with duplicated datamatrix code!

My thanks to IG for sharing this with us all.  It's an amazing error - and of course there must be more because however these are printed, in whatever sheet or reel format (probably the latter as it is especially for automatic addition to Royal Mail first day covers) - each of the stamps should have a unique datamatrix code.  The two codes on each stamp are indeed different.

If anyone else has received a similar error, it will be very interesting to know just how many we can record.

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Christmas 2023 booklet with missing barcodes sold over PO counter.

In October last year a postmaster found, in his new stock, a sheet of 2nd class stamps with no datamatrix barcodes, which we reported here. 

Well before the stamps were due to be issued an image of this sheet was shared on a postmaster chat forum and, although we don't know the full facts, it came to the attention of Royal Mail and it seems that Post Office Ltd arranged for the stamps to be withdrawn. They were apparently never sold over the counter, nor direct to collectors or dealers.

Not so in this case.

Earlier this month I was alerted to another case.  The writer had found the earlier blog post and wrote with details and an image, and this time the error is on a 2nd class booklet. 

Christmas 2023 2nd class booklet with missing barcode

The writer tells that the booklet was sold at a branch in Surrey.  

This error is previously unreported: nobody has mentioned this or similar errors to me before, nor to the Modern British Philatelic Circle (MBPC), the Great Britain Philatelic Society, and no dealers have reported it, and nor have the three monthly magazines with wide circulation in the UK.

The owner is interested in its value.  As I explained, 

The way they are printed, there must be - unless quality control only let a few out in error - a dozen or more, maybe 50.  The fact that they haven't been reported means that:

- they were spotted after your booklet was sold, reported, and returned to the warehouse;

- they were sold but haven't been used, which would be unlikely for Christmas stamps at Christmas;

- they were sold and people who bought them are holding on to them to see if any others are reported - if everybody does that of course it is down to the first one to blink. 

---- or a combination of these.

UPDATE 3 March

I suppose it is a sign of the times that the first comment on this is that the booklet might be counterfeit, never mind the fact that there would be no point in counterfeiting an error rather than a stamp-as-issued. This reflects the plethora of forgeries on the market now, not only of Machin and KC3 definitives, but also many Christmas stamps and, more latterly, gummed special stamps.

To my mind it is an error, nothing more nothing less.  Let me remind you that these were probably printed in the summer, at a similar time to the sheet stamps with missing barcode which were recalled before they could be issued. 

Christmas stamps are printed well in advance of issue. Other special stamp issues are not printed quite as far in advance of the issue date.  Also issued last summer was the River Wildlife set which included the error of a single phosphor band on the 1st class stamps. 

And in February the King Charles valued definitives were printed in sheet form.  We don't know exactly when the coil stamps for first day covers - produced erronesusly without U-shaped slits - were printed but it would have been well before November.  What seems evident is that all these - River Wildlife, Definitives, Christmas sheets and Christmas booklets - were produced during the first 9 months of 2023. 

Although there were other errors, most notably involving prestige stamp books which had missing or duplicated stamp or interleave panes (or covers), or which had serious miscuts or other misalignments, these types of errors were occurring many times over the life of this blog.  

If you look at the word-cloud in the right-hand column of this page, you will see that 'Error' runs to 127 posts.  This does include pre-release usage, and various Post and Go errors, as well as errors in the design (Wales 1st class font types), the missing P from the source code in PSB stamps (M_IL), and errors of colour the 81p PSB stamp) or make-up/inclusion (The £1.17 stamp included in a PSB after it ceased to pay a postage rate), but it also includes many instances of "these should not have made it to the public"!

So errors of one sort or another have abounded, and they really came to a peak in 2023.  It doesn't seem to be unreasonable that the booklet under discussion is another one in the 2023 errors saga.

I hope that publication here and by the Societies and magazines will come to the attention of anybody else who might have one of these and we will then have a better idea of how many there might be.

If any dealer wishes to suggest a value for my contributor, then I shall be pleased to pass it on.

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Darwin Seeing Double in PSB

It was probably inevitable that there would be make-up errors in the Charles Darwin PSB as this seems to be a matter of course, even from 'security' printers. So in an initial distribution from Royal Mail's Philatelic Bureau in Edinburgh, one lucky collector has a PSB with a duplicated MS pane.
This is on our website and updates will be added in due course.

Startling error found on Queen PSB Machin pane

Over the years we have reported many errors in Prestige Stamp Books, from duplicated pages, duplicate covers, missing panes, inverted panes, etc.  Not since buying the 1980 Wedgwood PSB with central broad phosphor on one pane, can I recall finding anything myself.

So this error on the one complete booklet I purchased from the Bureau was a very pleasant surprise.

I was looking at the iridescent printing to make sure that the M20L MPIL coding was all there (no missing P!), when I noticed that it was substantially shifted to the right.

It was when I took the photo that I realised that the rouletted perforation provided to separate the pane from the selvedge (for FDC production) is also shifted to the right.  The displacement of both perforation and iridescent ink is around 11mm and results in the perforation cutting through the Queen's nose and touching the chin on the 1p stamp.

The other inks and the regular perforations are in the right place, making this quite remarkable.

I mentioned this to some other dealers, but no other examples have been reported to me yet.

I'm open to offers for this as it is not something I am interested in keeping and it belongs with a Machin specialist, I think, or any collector of the bizarre!


UPDATE 12 July.
Chris (in comments) has remarked on receiving two PSBs from the Bureau, only to find that neither of them has the definitive pane at all!  I'm sure the Bureau would exchange them for proper one!

Here's the picture that Chris sent:

 

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This won't be Peanuts - Basic products £64.80, the full bundle another £95! Set of 8, issued on 24 July 2025.

Ever since the stamp programme was announced we wondered whether there could possibly be a redeeming factor in this issue: that is, something other than an American comic strip. But no, the 75th anniversary of the Peanuts comic strip is being commemorated by Britain's Royal Mail.

Royal Mail reason and inspiration

Royal Mail are celebrating the internationally loved comic strip ‘Peanuts’ on the occasion of its 75th anniversary in 2025.

The first black-and-white Peanuts daily strip launched on Monday, 2 October 1950, in a modest seven newspapers. As many more papers signed on, it led to the longer Sunday episodes in colour, from 6 January 1952. It expanded to the UK in February 1953, first featuring in the Daily Sketch, before switching to the Daily Mail in May 1971.

Charles Schulz devoted himself to putting his pen to paper and turned his ‘repertory company’ of assorted children, a beagle and a little bird into the American comic-strip masterpiece Peanuts. Seven days a week for nearly 50 years, the comic was enjoyed in as many as 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries by an estimated 350 million readers. Reprints still run in some 2,000 papers in print and online – proof that Peanuts remains highly popular with young and old a quarter of a century after Schulz’s final original strip appeared on 13 February 2000.

Each stamp in the set of eight, se-tenant pairs, features Charlie Brown, Snoopy and friends in a British style theme of the much-loved comic strip including: the classic Snoopy pose on a Royal Mail Pillar Box, playing Football (or Soccer as Charlie Brown may have called it), Charlie Brown and Snoopy “enjoying” the British Weather and a Birthday Tea Party among others. 

The stamps 

8 x 1st class stamps marking the 75th anniversary of American comic strip 'Peanuts'.

Technical Details

The 41 x 30 mm stamps were designed by Interbang and printed by Cartor Security Printers in lithography with regular gum, perforated 14½ x 14.  Copyright © 2025 Peanuts Worldwide.

Collectors Sheet & Fan Sheets

I don't recall a previous collector sheet having only 8 stamps - if the set had 8 normally two were duplicated.  This sheet is litho and self-adhesive making the stamps different to those issued in counter sheets. (Price £14.80)

 

 

The Peanuts Gang Fan sheet and Snoopy Fan sheet contain four 'gang' stamps (the eighth one shown above) or four Snoopy stamps (the first one above) respectively. Price £8.

Products available

Set of 8 stamps, first day cover, presentation pack, collector's sheet, stamp cards, Peanuts character pack of set of stamps, Peanuts Gang Fan sheet, Snoopy Fan sheet. silver-plated medal cover, framed stamp set, framed collector's sheet, limited edition (1000) gold stamp ingot of the Snoopy stamp.

 

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Major phosphor shift on Aerial Post Machin stamp pane

A correspondent in the USA has reported a significant phosphor shift which I don't think has been reported elsewhere.

"Recently I ordered a First UK Aerial Post Prestige Book from Royal Mail.

"When it arrived late last week, I noticed that the mixed Machin pane had its phosphor bands shifted 6mm left. This leaves the right column of stamps with what looks like a center band instead of two side bands, and the stamps in the center and left columns have a double-wide band covering the right half of each stamp from the stamp centerline to just inside the right perfs. Even the center label of KGV has a phosphor band.

"I realize that phosphor shifts do not command the prices that a visible color would get, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It is not often one gets an EFO direct from the source.  As these panes were printed as multiple panes on one sheet, I assume there should be more examples out there, have you heard of any?"

If a picture can be obtained, I'll add it here in due course.

Do let us know if you have any significant phosphor shifts or any other errors.  It's a very long time since we had a book with any duplicated pages!

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Attention our webshop customers !

We're contemplating some minor changes to our web-shop, and thought it a good idea to run them past customers first, to get some feedback.

As some of you will know the minimum order value on our webshop is just £5.00.  It was set like this when we set up the new store five years ago, when stamp prices were generally low, and a £1 stamp was a high value.  It allowed for people who wanted to buy just one of our first day covers, just a few of our postcards or postal history covers, or a few of the latest Machin security stamps, blocks, or booklets.

Since then most of what has been added is new stamps; time has not permitted us to add as many new postal history items as we would have liked.  Excess time is taken up with small orders, as people rush to make sure they don't miss out on one of the new stamps before it disappears for ever, as so many have done.  This has sometimes meant three orders in a week for some of our customers.

Increasing the minimum order level will not make much difference to most orders, especially as there are so many more expensive stamps now that face values have increased.  But any time saved can be used to add more products for sale - older Machin series stamps (the long-promised X & Y numbers from Gibbons catalogues), and booklets; and more postal history.  If customers combine their orders into larger ones they will save on postage - and we often refund duplicated postage payments if we combine two orders into one package, refunding the excess: it all takes time.

Other products.  We can't make any promises, but later in the year I want to add other ranges of material.  (Most of this year's Machins are now available so the second half could be quieter?)  As mentioned above, these would include:

1. Pre-security Machin singles from sheets and coils, including cylinder blocks, date strips etc
2. Similar for regional issues.
3. Post and Go stamps on cover, some with a clear date, use often not inspired by collectors/dealers.
4. Ditto Horizon labels, white, gold, perforated gold, and latest.
5. Older Great Britain first day covers, definitive
6. Selections of Machin security stamps used on dated cover, preferably 'in period', eg M12L used in 2012-13, not 2015 or later.   These would probably be in 'collections' rather than individually.
7. Ditto on piece for those who don't want covers; although covers can make a nice display, they do take up space!
8. Postal History of Great Britain, Commonwealth and Foreign countries, mostly post WWI, and much of it 1960s onwards, particularly Europe, Australia, New Zealand.
9. Anything else.

Items 3, 4, 5 6 and 8 are particularly attractive to us because they take up a lot of space.  They would be priced to sell!

Noting that we have many loyal customers, we would particularly like to know what else you would be interested in, how we can add to your collections.   But at the same time we welcome thoughts from new or occasional customers and visitors who have looked but not found anything of interest.

We will also be putting some stock onto eBay using the norvic user name, especially where we think the interest may be wider than our current viewers.

Update:  Thanks to Anonymous and Doug for comments; I've had others by email.

Doug raises an interesting point:

However, I think you have to look at the business model you are considering moving to. From a current position of having reasonable stocks (i.e. multiple copies) of an item that you can sell (i.e. list and catalogue) is different to having a significant number of one-off items for offer (similar to a person selling a personal item on eBay).

(snipped)

I am not sure what you mean in the sentence "... items 3,4,5,6 and 8 are particularly attractive to us..". By that I am assuming you don't actually want to continually stock these and you are attempting to dispose of these once and for all to save space etc. Those items I could see as one off eBay offers. 

A little background information will probably help add the right perspective.  I've been collecting (accumulating) stamps and postal history for over 60 years.  When I had the early retirement opportunity I created the original website starting with the 1998 Lighthouse stamps and collectors around the world asked me to do FDCs and to get the thematic postmarks.  This expanded in the 1999-2000 Millennium years.  I did consider selling at stamp fairs, but a wise local dealer and friend told me that it was exceedingly difficult to have the same postcard and postal history stock at fairs and online - I'll leave you to imagine the problems involved in selling something at a fair only to get home and find that somebody had bought it from the webshop.
     A few years later we decided to produce our own range of limited edition first day covers often using Norfolk themes or our own photographs for the illustrations. It was fun, and we had a loyal following.  But the sheer volume of new issues meant that we also pulled the plug on that venture, with the aim of devoting more time to the (then) 50 year accumulation of one-off items. The blog was started to direct traffic to the website which continued to show new issues, and to the shop, highlighting new blocks of one-off covers and cards.
      And then Royal Mail's security features appeared on Machin definitives, and with news coming not only from official sources and printed media, but also from collectors and dealers with their local finds and discoveries, the emphasis switched to those, and the time that was going to be devoted to what I already had was taken up with what I (and you) wanted to find.  The Checklist was born from an initial list which put things in perspective and showed how SG had changed their catalogue numbers - in some cases twice in 12 months!
       So although I am described in some places as a Machin Security expert that has only come about by chance and with the help of others.  And while I believe that collecting the Security Definitives has brought back the 'thrill of the hunt' that existed in Wilding days, with different watermarks, paper, phosphor, etc, the hunt for these and other stamps on cover paying the right rate for the job is much more difficult - and satisfying - than buying mint stamps from Royal Mail or from dealers.




 
Security features:  £1.10 solo use to Australia and inland Special Delivery 100gr.




Please read the other comments and leave a comment on the order level and new products questions.  If you don't want to do so publicly, then either email to ian@norphil.co.uk or send a comment headed 'not for publication'.  All comments are moderated (ie checked before publication) so we can copy the message to our own records and then delete what you have written.  But if you would like a reply, we will need your email address.

Thanks for reading this and for helping us to help you build your collections.

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Special Delivery 1973 - solo use of 20p Silver Wedding stamp, and pre-printed Machin PPI
 
  
Pre-security Machins: different from different sources - Anniversary Wilding Regionals from PSB

 

Australia Modern Postal History



Foreign Postal History

 

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PSB make-up errors are back - Dungeons & Dragons with two definitive panes

It's four years since we reported on duplicated stamp panes in prestige books (the last duplicate of any sort was the cover of the Platinum Jubilee book), but I am pleased to say that another one has occurred.

My thanks to PMJ who bought this book in Reading Post Office.  The first image shows the back of one self-adhesive pane and the front of the other.  The second image is unfortunately out of focus but it's difficult to take a photo one-handed while splaying the pages with the other hand.  But obviously there are two definitive panes.

Dungeons and Dragons Prestige Stamp Book with the plain reverse of a definitive pane on the left facing a second pane.

Dungeons and Dragons Prestige Stamp Book two definitive panes.

Please let us know if you find any other errors on PSB make-up.  And browse here to see many previous instances.

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Spectacular Buckingham Palace Prestige Book and Miniature Sheet Errors

It's many years since we had any tasty errors from Prestige Stamp Books.  Back in 2007-9 it seemed to be happening all the time giving the impression that 'normal' books might be the rare ones!

The Machin Anniversary PSB was the biggest mess with multiple errors, but there were several others at that time including the Regional Stamps Anniversary, and in 2009 the Darwin PSB.

But today a lucky collector - who has one PSB on standing order and ordered two extra - found that the extra two in his delivery from Royal Mail's bureau both have pane 4 inverted!

For the last prestige book Enschede had the definitive pane flipped when they perforated it (or had the perforator inverted), now they have processed at least one sheet of stamps inverted.  That's Winston Churchill on the balcony... almost invites a caption competiton, doesn't it?

As usual, we will be pleased to hear of any more of these - or any other - errors on this book.

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Meanwhile it seems that lightning does strike twice, even if the events are 5 years apart!

Back in September 2008 one of our readers was lucky enough to find the Regional Anniversary PSB with one pane duplicated:

Now the same collector has bought this Buckingham Palace miniature sheet, from the same post office!

As you can see, the sheet has not been trimmed at the left (the cutting guide line is shown 1mm into the coloured design), so the bar-code, FSC certification and short name are all present.  Like the Buckingham Palace PSB, the miniature sheet is printed by Enchede.

How lucky can some people be?  But it could as easily be you - visit your local post office and see what they have!

UPDATED 22 APRIL
It now appears that all the stock in Post Office branches is with the selvedge (which is rouletted to allow separation) while that which came from Tallents House has the selvedge removed!

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Just print some stamps, we don't care what they look like!

It's beginning to look that way, with Royal Mail seemingly not exercising any quality control over what their print contractors are doing. When I worked for a security print organisation we had our own people in contractors' premises, at least when printing started and finished, to check that what they were producing matched what we asked for and what we thought they should be printing.

Of course one could argue that it doesn't really matter as long as the stamps are fit for purpose, ie they will do the job that is required.  We've had prestige book make-up errors with duplicated or otherwise wrong pages (see blog posts - as they write in Private Eye - passim, ad nauseum).

We've had the long elliptical perforation hole at the top instead of nearer the foot of the pane.

We've had an entirely wrong colour, again in a PSB, where - arguably - it matters far less than elsewhere because those stamps rarely get used for postage. And the change to the colour of the 1st class 'red' wasn't consistent in PSBs either.  The 2p & 50p stamps in the Marvel PSB are so different from earlier ones that they may have full catalogue listing!

We've had phantom or missing cylinder numbers on counter sheets.

So what do you make of this?  

Since the printing of country definitives was moved from De La Rue to Cartor in 2012, there have been several reprints.

The original printing of the Wales 1st class was on 10 & 11/07/12  (released January 2013) using Cylinders C1.   What we believe to be the second printing was on 07/04/15 and these cylinders were also C1, but this was during the period when cylinders were not always renumbered as they should be.  The black was clearly a new cylinder as the printing date was part of the cylinder.

Cylinders C2 were used on 17/11/16.   And the next printing, on 26/12/17 was from a new set of C1 cylinders with the font revised to that used for the airmail values and the Machin definitives. 

A recent list from Royal Mail showed a printing from Cylinders C3.  This wasn't regarded as odd: it would be quite possible for Cylinders C2 to be produced but not used because they were - for some reason - not of the right quality.

It was only when a customer asked if he had had a C2 block, that I found the C2 that he had had, and realised that C3 is the same font.  So what gives?  Royal Mail asked Cartor to print some more 1st class stamps for Wales - and they used the previous master images and made a new cylinder.

Maybe Royal Mail didn't feel the need to specify "use the latest design" - I'm not sure that I would have.  Why would you?  Why would a printer NOT use the latest design?

 

 

 

Many people don't collect cylinder blocks and date blocks, and to be fair there isn't much to choose between the stamps printed by C1, C2 & C3 in the old font - minor shade differences excepted.

But if anybody wants date blocks or cylinder blocks - or even singles - of the latest printing I will make them available on our webshop shortly, although there will be a delay in supplying while I obtain more stocks from Royal Mail.  They will be listed here.

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