½p PaleTurquoise Side Band Left

The ½p Machin with sideband left printed by Harrison and Sons in Photogravure FCP/PVA gum is one of a kind. Although it is not a rare ( far from it ) stamp, prices in catalogues tend to reflect that it could be overpriced at £25 ( FINE USED ) - ( £55 UNMOUNTED MINT ).

The reason for the high catalogue price is due to the fact that this stamp was only available from one source and most of the stamps that came on the market are of low quality. The price quoted above is for top quality stamps with full perforations only.

The source of the stamp is from a mixed value pane in the £1. 00 (bound) Wedgwood Booklet issued 24th May 1972.

Many booklets were printed but the panes on the majority were very badly trimmed at the bottom during separation, guillotining, of the made up booklets, which was the method of manufacture. Hence the ½p without trimmed perfs are very difficult to come by unmounted mint.

Untrimmed panes were printed just for dealers and The Royal Mail to service first day covers , so used stamps with good to average perfs are more widely available.

When you are looking to purchase this variety in unmounted mint condition be sure to check that is a well centred copy and that the perforations are not trimmed. Trimmed perfs should be classed as damaged and either purchased at a large discount or ignored altogether.

Did you know that these stamps, due to a phosphor shift are also known with a Broad band left?
They are also known with an overprint. These overprints can only be found from the £1 STAPLED VERSION ) of the decimal Wedgwood booklet. It was issued with the overprint "SPECIMEN".

Overprinted stamps listed from the booklet are are the ½p 2 band , ½p left band, 2½p side band ( left or right) a 2½p centre band and a 3p two band. These are quite rare and are highly collectable.

It has been suggested that these booklets with the CTO overprint were sent out to certain firms to attract future advertising.