Thank you, MBPC

It's only April 12, and I've just received the latest edition of The Bookmark, the journal of the Modern British Philatelic Circle. I was especially pleased to receive it because the envelope was franked with all three of the new Machins, the reprinted 9p, and one of the new regionals, all issued just a few days ago on April 1. Just for good measure, it also included one of my favorite special stamps, the Ordnance Survey issue of 1991. (Since this is a Machin blog, I'll restrain myself and not go off on a tangent explaining why I like this stamp.)

Roy has written about the MBPC before, so I won't repeat the information here. However, I will add that the Circle has an extensive web site that is being actively enhanced. (Much more than my own web site!) There are extensive sections on booklets and booklet panes and special issues. There's a complete list of De La Rue printing dates. Most recently added is a cross reference between booklet panes and booklets - for each pane, it lists which booklets contained it.

The main parts of the site are available to members only.

The club also has extensive and frequent auctions. If you are interested in acquiring QE II material at favorable prices, the auctions will be very helpful.

The bottom line is that if you collect Machins and/or other Elizabethan GB stamps, then you should be a member.

You can visit their web site at http://www.mbp-circle.co.uk.

--Larry

Distinguishing ATN papers

In my previous post about ATN Machins, I noted that collectors divide the papers into three categories - dull, intermediate and bright. This refers to the brightness under long-wave ultraviolet light.

(The first-class gold Machin is in a group by itself. It has always been issued on a very dull paper that became known as RMS, as I noted in the previous post.)

When I started working with the ATN Machins, I developed a pretty good way to determine the brightness of any stamp. Here I am going to tell you how I did it.

There are three different scenarios that you may find yourself in with regards to this identification:
1. You have a single stamp with no margin (or selvage/selvedge) attached.
2. You have a single stamp with some margin attached.
3. You have a multiple of stamps with a margin on which the printing date has been inscribed.

I'll take these in the reverse order.

Some years ago, printers started putting the printing date in the margin of each sheet of stamps, as shown on the block above. This is the actual printing date, not the first day of issue. These are generally collected as blocks of eight.

With one or two exceptions, De La Rue only used one type of paper each day, so the printing date identifies the paper. That is, it does so if you have a listing of all the printing dates and the paper used on that date.

Such a list can be found in the Machin Collectors Club's QEII Specialized Definitves Stamp Catalogue. There is also a list on the Modern British Philatelic Circle's web site, but you must be a member of the circle to access it. (If you collect Machins, you should be a member anyway!) And many dealers publish their own list disguised as a price list.

(Douglas Myall's Complete Deegam Machin Handbook identifies all the different papers that were used for each denomination, but it does not include all the printing dates.)

Date blocks are an easy way to identify the paper (no UV lamp needed!), but it is also an expensive way. You are more likely to be in one of the other two situations.

Considering that Machins have a very small area that is not covered by colored ink, and much of that white area is covered by phosphor bands on the vast majority of Machins, life is much easier - if you define your life by the ease with which you can identify Machin paper varieties - when you have a stamp with a piece of margin attached.

At least until you get the hang of it, shining your UV light on a single stamp may not be too helpful. What you really have to do is compare the paper with some known examples.



I gathered three marginal copies of the 4p Machin, one on dull paper, one intermediate and one bright. There was nothing special about the 4p - any denomination, or a mix of denominations, would do.

When I want to identify a stamp that has a margin attached, I put it and the three known copies in an arrangement so that all the margins are near one another, as I've shown here. The unknown is the 5p stamp.

I then shine the UV lamp on this group of four, and I can then tell which 4p paper matches the 5p.

Under UV light, the bright paper appears very light gray, almost white. The intermediate and dull papers are pale purple, with the dull paper being darker, and more purple, and the intermediate paper.

In my opinion, it's always easy to tell a bright paper, but it is sometimes hard to differentiate between intermediate and dull. The brightness is determined by the amount of optical brightening agent (OBA) added to the paper, and since this amount varies, the paper brightness varies over a range. It's hard to know exactly when dull becomes intermediate. (This is nothing new - identifying Machin papers has always been an inexact science.)



If you have a stamp without a margin, the comparison has to be done using the white border on the top or bottom of the stamp that is between the phosphor bands. Here I've shown how I arrange three stamps. The unknown stamp is in the middle, and stamps with known brightness are above and below. I cover the sides of the stamps so that the phosphor bands are completely hidden, because otherwise the fluorescence of the bands is so bright that I can't see the brightness of the paper.

Shining the UV light on the middle stamp allows me to compare it to the two known ones. I use bright and dull for my first examination. If the unknown stamp matches the bright one, I'm done. If it is closer to the dull one, then I replace the bright stamp with the intermediate stamp and then compare the unknown against intermediate and dull to see which is closer.

One important note. The comparison I've done above is with the papers that were used until spring of 2005. At that time, as I noted in the previous post, a new paper known as RMS was introduced. It is even duller than the pre-2005 dull papers. You'll probably need a reference copy of this paper as well, and you may have to modify the methods I've shown above accordingly.

I should note that my identifications were done with mint stamps. I don't know if the soaking process to remove a used stamp from paper will affect the brightness.

--Larry

New Deegam Web Site

Since you are reading this blog, you know that the Machins are fun to collect. And you probably also know that you need some assistance in order to collect them to any depth beyond denomination and color.

Douglas Myall has been providing Machin guidance for over 40 years. His Deegam publications have been available for over 20 years. (The name Deegam comes from his initials, D. G. A. Myall.) His piece de resistance is The Complete Deegam Machin Handbook, an extremely thorough reference work that is available in book and CD-ROM format.

There are, of course, other reference works and publications, but many of us believe that Myall's work is the most comprehensive and easiest to use.

One of Myall's very helpful publications are his Deegam Reports, periodic updates that include new issues, new information about older issues, and various other topics. It also includes updates to the Handbook.

Deegam Reports are available to collectors who purchase the Handbook. Until recently, they have been delivered free by email or for a small charge for mailed, paper copies. (They are also distributed with the journal of the Modern British Philatelic Circle.)

Now, however, Myall has introduced a Deegam Publication web site at www.deegam.com. The web site provides a place for Handbook owners to download their own copies of Deegam Reports. Every Handbook owner gets a personal reference number (PRN) from Myall, and this number is used to download the reports. This distribution method replaces the emails, but paper copies are still available.

If you don't have the Handbook, the web site provides information about it and purchasing instructions. It also contains information about Deegam Profiles, which can be used to write up a Machin collection.

As a bonus, visitors to the web site can download a free copy of Myall's Priced Catalogue of Elizabeth Coil Leaders, 1954 to 1994.

The site is easy to navigate (just like the Handbook!) and will be of use to anyone who owns the Deegam publications or is interested in acquiring them.

--Larry

A Closer Look at the James Bond Litho

Recently, I wrote about the James Bond Litho. That's what I called the first-class gold Machin printed by lithography and issued in a pane of 8 in the James Bond prestige booklet last January.

Previously, I wrote a brief history of lithographic printing of Machins. In short, the first lithography Machins were ugly - flat and lifeless are the terms I used. By the late 1980s and 1990s, lithographic printing had improved to where it was pretty much equal in quality to the gravure stamps.

Imagine my surprise, though, when I took a close look at the James Bond litho and found that it looked noticeably better than its gravure counterpart. The two stamps are shown side-by-side above. The litho stamp is on the right, with a little of its margin from the prestige booklet pane. You can see that, overall, the lithographed portrait is sharper ahd shows more detail.

The gravure Machins look pretty good. The switch to electromechanical engraving and the use of a digital portrait improved the image significantly from the older versions. But this new litho version is another step forward.

To investigate further, I scanned the two stamps at 1200dpi. I also scanned the 50p sand, which is a similar color but doesn't have the metallic finish of the gold stamps. The result is below. The tiny cells of the gravure process are easily visible. The litho stamp, in contrast, is smooth.



Look at the earring. The detail of the litho version is much clearer than the gravure stamps. The same goes for the curls of Her Majesty's hair.

And that difference is probably the best way to identify this stamp, in the unlikely event that you find one commercially used.

I'm left hoping that we see more of these lithographed stamps in prestige booklets ... and that's something I never thought I'd be wishing for.

--Larry

The Reincarnated 9p

As I mentioned previously, the 9p orange Machin is being returned to general circulation for use as a make-up rate stamp with the new rates taking effect on April 7. It can be used in combination with a second-class stamp (valued at 27p) to make the first-class rate (36p).

Royal Mail has confirmed that a new cylinder was made to reprint the 9p, but it will have the cylinder number D1, the same number as the previous cylinder.

If Royal Mail is allowing or requiring De La Rue to use number D1 for all cylinders of the same denomination/colour, why bother with a cylinder number at all? Is it just put there so collectors will continue to buy cylinder blocks, just like the new color name?

Speaking of color name, this new cylinder will have ORANGE in the upper left margin, continuing the practice started last year.

The previous cylinder was not a colour-specific, or colour-tied, cylinder, but this new one is. Royal Mail says this new one has a darker orange background and lighter portrait, which I think will make for a more attractive stamp.

We don't yet know if the value is placed in a slightly different location on this cylinder, a characteristic that will make this stamp easier to differentiate from its predecessor. Such a difference happened when the 46p was reincarnated last year. (By the way, the 46p was the first time that De La Rue reused the number D1 for a new cylinder.)

--Larry

A Brief History of ATN Machins

For those of us in love with Machin Minutiae™, the years 2003 to 2005 were very exciting. During that period, De La Rue produced Machins with six varieties of paper and three types of gum, a veritable treasure trove of challenges for those of us who like to exercise our ultraviolet lamps.

These were the first ATN Machins, so-called because they were printed by De La Rue on the ATN press. (ATN is the abbreviation for Applications Tecnologies Nouveaux, the name of the company that makes the press.) The varieties weren't directly related to the press; they stemmed from the various papers fed into it. Roy described these Machins here, here and here, so I won't repeat those details. However, the history of the ATN Machins - why and how they came about - hasn't been told here.

The story starts with Harrison & Sons, the venerable (founded in the 16th century) printer that had been printing British stamps since, well, a long time ago. Harrison & Sons printed all low-value Machins from their introduction in 1967 until 1979 and produced most of them in the years since then except for a period in the mid-1990s.

In 1997, Harrison & Sons was acquired by Thomas De La Rue and Company, a larger company but a relative newcomer to the printing business (founded in 1813). At that time, Machins were undergoing conversion to the new, computerized printing process known as electromechanical engraving, or EME. However, the purchase of Harrison & Sons by De La Rue didn't have any direct effect on Machins.

Five years later, De La Rue went on the prowl again and came home with The House of Questa, a mere child (founded in 1966) in the printing business. Questa had been printing Machins since 1980, first by lithography and then, starting in 1998, by gravure.

Under the guidance of De La Rue, the youthful Questa put the aged Harrisons out of business and took over the Machin printing duties. Machin production was moved from Harrison's plant in Hy Wycombe to Questa's location in Byfleet and was carried out on Questa's ATN press. These stamps had a number of differences from their predecessors (that's a topic for another day), so collectors started referring to them as the Byfleet Machins.

However, De La Rue consolidated its facilities and soon moved the ATN press to a different plant at Dunstable. Having been burned by the short-sighted nature of their nickname, collectors started referring to these stamps as the ATN Machins, a name that doesn't depend on the physical location of the printing press.

But we still haven't gotten to the cause of the many paper and gum varieties, so here it is. It was Harrison's practice to buy unfinished paper from its supplier, Tullis Russell Ltd. (formerly named Coated Papers Ltd.). Harrison then added a coating to one side (on which the stamp was printed) and gum to the other side. This practice didn't change when De La Rue first took over.

When De La Rue combined the Harrison and Questa businesses, they decided to stop finishing the paper themselves. They told their supplier, Tullis Russell, to provide finished paper to them.

TR (as I will call them, with only a slight nod to the most famous TR on my side of the Atlantic, Teddy Roosevelt) apparently didn't have any experience in producing finished paper. And even though Harrison transferred their technology and some employees to TR, TR's production of finished paper was, shall we say, erratic.

There were three types of gums - shiny gum with a blue tint, dull gum with a pale yellow, or cream, color and a colorless, matt gum known as layflat gum (because it didn't curl the way some other gums did). However, I won't bother with gums here because if you have a mint stamp, it's pretty easy to identify the gum. If you have a used stamp, you don't care.

The real fun was with the paper, and specifically with the brightness of the paper under long-wave ultraviolet light. The unfinished paper used for stamps is dull under UV light. At times, printers have added an optical brightening agent (OBA) to the coating. The OBA makes the paper look whiter under normal light - making the stamp more attractive.

The amount of OBA added to the coating can vary. This variation isn't readily visible under ordinary light, but the brightness under UV light varies with the amount of OBA. Paper with a lot of OBA looks bright white under UV. Paper with a lower amount of OBA looks gray, sometimes with a faint purple color.

As I said before, there were six different papers used for the initial ATN printings. However, collectors break them into three categories - dull (very little or no OBA), intermediate (some OBA) and bright (lots and lots of OBA). There is only one intermediate and one bright paper. It is the dull category that has four different papers, some of which can be inferred by identifying the gum, but that's beyond the scope of this already long post. Roy's previous posts, linked above, have some additional information.

In 2005, Royal Mail gave De La Rue a single specification for the paper to be used for all Machins. This is generally known as RMS (for Royal Mail Specification). This paper was actually first used by Harrison and Sons in 1997 for the metallic gold-colored Machin issued to mark the Queen's Golden Wedding Anniversary. This paper is smooth on both sides, shiny, and thicker than other papers. Its coating has no brightener, so it is considered a dull paper. (It is one of the four dull papers mentioned above, but in the 2003 to early 2005 period, it was only used for the metallic gold first-class non-denominated Machin.)

Starting in the spring of 2005, De La Rue standardized on this paper. Some Machins that had previously been printed on other papers were printed on RMS when new supplies were needed. All newly-issued Machins were printed on RMS, so the fun and games ended. Well, almost.

There was one more tweak to the ATN Machins. After several Machins were printed on RMS paper, Royal Mail's quality assurance division decided that the colors were not quite right. Most noticeably the head was too pale. They decided that a new set of cylinders was needed, with the depth of etch varying for each color. Douglas Myall calls these "colour-tied" cylinders.


Pictured here are the first 2p on RMS paper (cylinder D1, printing date 22 April 2005) and the colour-tied 2p (cylinder D2, printing date 16 March 2006). The difference in the Queen's head is easily visible. On this value, the background color is also darker, but that's not noticeable on all denominations.

Several denominations were reissued with a colour-tied cylinder. All new Machins since the beginning of 2006 were, of course, printed with colour-tied cylinders.

That's where the ATN Machins rest as this is written. We'll see what other surprises Royal Mail and De La Rue have in store for us in the future.

--Larry

If it walks like a duck ...

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck but looks like a bunch of Machins, then it's the Unofficial Mascot of the Great Britain Collectors Club. This beautiful creature belongs to Jerry Rodgers and has been adopted by the club ... or at least by the club's Machin-loving officers. It sat at the GBCC society table at Westpex in San Francisco in April, 2006 and single-handedly (single-wingedly?) signed up seven new members.

He's very well trained and immediately answers to his nickname ... Arnold.

--Larry

New rates, new Machins

Royal Mail has announced new postal rates to take effect on April 7. The basic first-class rate increases 2p to 36p, but the second-class rate has a much larger (on a percentage basis) increase, a 3p jump to 27p.

The international rates also increase, though overall by a smaller percentage than last year. The basic rate to Europe rises from 48p to 50p and the first two airmail rates go from 54p to 56p for 10 grams and 78p to 81p for 20 grams.

There's more information about the new rates on my web site.

There will be only three new Machins, a smaller number than the five last year. (One of those was the 50p in a new color, so the rate change really only required four new Machins. I'm not counting the new printing of the 46p Machin which also occurred last year.)

There will be a 56p lime green and an 81p sea green for the new international rates. There will also be a 15p shocking pink to pay the difference between second-class letters (27p) and second-class large letters (42p). The difference between first-class letters and large letters is now 16p, and that is paid by the 16p Machin issued last year.

(It is interesting that shocking pink was picked for the 15p because the 16p is pink, the new non-shocking shade developed a few years ago by Jeffery Matthews. It will be easy to confuse the two values, I think.)

Royal Mail also notes that the 9p orange will be put back on general sale to pay the difference between the 27p second-class and 36p first-class rate. As has been common practice, the 9p was withdrawn from public sale last year when it was no longer needed, but it remains on sale to collectors from Tallents House. Royal Mail hasn't announced whether there will be a new printing of the 9p that is distinguishable from the previous one, as there was last year with the 46p.

There are two other items to note, although these don't have to do with Machins. First, there will be new regional definitives in 50p and 81p denominations, keeping the same designs that have been used for many years.

Second, Royal Mail has simplified the worldwide airmail rates for mail going to destinations other than Europe. Previously there were two zones, and letters weighing more than 20g were charged a higher rate for zone 2 than for zone 1. Starting on April 7, there is only one zone for such mail, and the new rates are in between the old zone 1 and zone 2 rates. More details about the zones can be found on the Great Britain Collectors Club web site.

--Larry

Update: Here's a glimpse of the new Machins.

The Machin Forum Returns

The Machin Forum, started by Dave Arthur last May, was the site of many good Machin discussions. The Forum disappeared suddenly a few weeks ago. I was pleased to learn today that it is back at a new location. Join the Forum, and the Machin fun, at http://stamp-collector.co.uk/MachinForum.

--Larry

The Dilemma of the James Bond Litho

Last summer I mentioned Royal Mail's announcement that all prestige booklet panes would be printed by lithography. This in turn would create new Machin varieties, at least for those of us who collect variations of printing method.

The first such Machin appeared on January 8 in the James Bond prestige booklet. The first-class gold Machin in one of the panes has been printed by lithography for the first time. Click here for a picture of the Machin portion of the pane, scroll down the page until you see the first day cover of the pane.

The gold first-class Machin first made its appearance in 1997, in honor of the Queen's golden (50th) wedding anniversary. (There were also gold 26p Machins, since 26p was the first-class rate and Royal Mail had not made the complete conversion to non-denominated NVI stamps at that time). The gold first-class Machins were all printed by gravure, by Walsall (in sheets and booklet panes) and Harrison (in coils and booklet panes).

The flame-colored version returned the next year, although the gold version popped up in booklet panes from time to time.

Gold returned permanently as the color of the first-class Machin in 2002, celebrating the golden jubilee of the Queen's accession to the throne. The gold first-class Machins were issued in self-adhesive formats printed in gravure by Walsall, Enschede and Questa.

The next year, the gold first-class stamps appeared in sheet format with water-activated gum. These were printed by De La Rue in gravure on the ATN press.

And so the situation remained until a few weeks ago when the James Bond booklet appeared.

Now, about that dilemma. I'm not referring to the dilemma of identifying the lithographic printing. That's not a dilemma, although it can be a bit tricky. There are some helpful links toward the end of the previous post.

The dilemma I have is where to put this stamp!

Let me explain. One of the cardinal rules of Machin collecting is that the only organization scheme that can handle any new stamp with aplomb is the Deegam system. This is the method devised by Douglas Myall and explained in his Complete Deegam Machin Handbook.

We've discussed the handbook previously here and here, so I won't go into too many details now. The essence of the system is that it is organized chronologically within denomination, so any new stamp simply gets the next higher number. There's no fussing with gum or printing method or anything else in order to determine where each stamp goes.

As my readers know, I have been a big proponent of the Deegam system for a long time. Most of my collection is organized according to his system, at least to the extent that it is organized at all.

However, a few years ago, I made an exception. When De La Rue first started printing Machins on the ATN press in 2003, first at their Byfleet plant and then at the Dunstable plant, there were many variations in paper and gum that appeared. Roy wrote about it here and here. This kind of thing is exactly what causes a Machin collector to salivate, and salivate I did. (I did manage to keep my saliva away from the Machins, in case you were concerned.)

I started to build a specialized collection of these stamps, including marginal singles (easier to determine the paper and gum with a piece of margin), date blocks (marginal blocks with the printing date inscribed in the margin - the date almost always confirms the paper and gum), and cylinder blocks. I put these in an album, which then grew into two albums. So this is a collection of Machins printed by De La Rue on the ATN gravure press, displaying the variety of papers and gums used during this period.

The rest of the Machins issued over the past few years have gone into another album organized according to Deegam.

And now the De La Rue litho stamp throws a monkey wrench into the works and leaves me with a dilemma. Should I put it in the with ATN issues? It doesn't quite fit there because it was printed on a different press and is not part of the story told by the other stamps, but it is a De La Rue issue, and all the other De La Rues of the past five years are there. Or should I put it with the other issues? It seems out of place there, too, because it is the only De La Rue mixed in with several years worth of Walsall, Questa and Enschede stamps.

So this lonely stamp, pictured above, is sitting on my desk (actually resting peacefully beneath my monitor), waiting until I decide where its home will be. Where do you think I should put it?

--Larry