Matthews Mania

I've thought for a while that the current definitives - those with what we might now call the classic design - should be called Matthews and not Machins.

After all, there are three design elements of these stamps - the portrait, the denomination or service indicator, and the color. For most of the current stamps, Jeffery Matthews has designed two out of the three.

And Royal Mail agrees with me. For some definitives, Royal Mail has given the credit "Designed by J. Matthews based on a portrait by A. Machin" or something like that. In one announcement of new definitives, Royal Mail didn't list a designer but credited "Colour palette - Jeffery Matthews".

Those of you who have been collecting Machins for some time have, I'm sure, at least heard of Jeffery Matthews. Those of you who are new to this wonderful collecting area should know about him.

Arnold Machin developed the original design during 1965-67, and the first of his stamps was issued on June 5, 1967. He then did some work for the high values - the requirements were a little different for the recess printing (also known as engraving or intaglio) used for the high values than they were for the photogravure low values. He also created a modified head that could be used in a small size on commemorative stamps.

It must not have been long after Machin completed his work that Jeffery Matthews, an artist who had already designed two sets of British commemorative stamps, was brought in to work on the definitives. His first task was to design the emblems used on the regional Machins issued in 1971 at the time of decimalization. He has continued to work on the Machins right up to this year.

Here's a summary of what Matthews has done for the Machins:

- Designed the emblems for the regional Machins. He actually did that twice. The first time, he designed them for photogravure printing. Later, when Royal Mail brought in new printers, the regionals were then printed by lithography. So he redrew the symbols so that they would look good regardless of the method of printing.

- Designed the large-size photogravure high values that were issued starting in 1977. I didn't know this until I saw the Thematica souvenir sheet pictured at the top of this post. At least, I'm assuming that it means Matthews designed the issued stamps, though it doesn't specifically say that. I will find out.

- Designed a new typeface, or font, for the denomination. The font originally used for the decimal Machins was too big for denominations such as 20 1/2p. Matthews designed a new, narrower font that is now referred to as the "Matthews font." It was implemented gradually, starting in 1983.

- Designed a new color palette for the Machins. Machin himself helped choose the colors for the original 1967 issue. A lengthy study was done to develop the colors for the initial decimal issue in 1971. However, with many new values needed in the inflationary 1970s and 1980s, the British Post Office got sloppy with the colors. Matthews was assigned the task of developing a new batch of colors.

He initially developed a group of 30 colors. These were gradually introduced starting in 1988. A few other colors were used as well. In the late 1990s, Matthews was asked to produce an additional three colors. These were grey-blue (first used on the 40p in 2000), orange (first used on the 9p in 2005), and pink (first used on the 16p in 2007).

Most recently, he was asked to develop a new color for the £1 Machin in honor of the 40th anniversary of the design. He chose ruby, since the gemstone ruby traditionally marks the 40th wedding anniversary. His ruby £1 was issued on June 5, 2007.

- Designed the "double-header" issue that celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Penny Black (Britain's and the world's first postage stamp). After trying several different designs, he decided to follow Machin's idea of simplicity and just added Queen Victoria's portrait behind that of Queen Elizabeth II. The stamps were in use throughout most of 1990.

- Designed the horizontal format that was used for initial tests of self-adhesive booklets and coils.

- Designed a miniature sheet that highlights his color palette using eight stamps and two labels. The sheet was issued in 2000 as part of the celebration of Stamp Show 2000.

- Designed the two commemoratives that honored Arnold Machin on the 40th anniversary. One stamp shows a portrait of Machin and the other pictures the first Machin, the 4d olive-sepia. He also designed the souvenir sheet that contains these two commemoratives, the new ruby £1 and the old mauve £1. (He did these in collaboration with Katja Thielen of Together Design, though he developed the concept of the stamp-on-stamp design and also the miniature sheet.)

In 2000, Douglas Muir, Curator, Philately of the British Postal Museum & Archive, revealed that an extensive effort was made in the 1980s to replace the Machin portrait. Matthews played a key role in this effort, along with his son Rory (and had it been successful, we might really be using "Matthews" on our mail), but it was ultimately unsuccessful. The full story is described in Muir's recent book, A Timeless Classic: The evolution of Machin's icon.

So the name we collectors give to this series remains the same, and I think that is appropriate. After all, regardless of the color or the font, it is the portrait and the overall simplicity and elegance of the design that make the stamp what it is, and those characteristics are the work of Arnold Machin.

--Larry

Note: I, with my colleague David Alderfer, had the privilege of interviewing Matthews during The Stamp Show 2000. If you'd like to read it, you can find it on the Great Britain Collectors Club web site.

Fun with Wikipedia and Google

As I was doing research for my next post, I made an interesting discovery. There is an article about Jeffery Matthews in the French version of Wikipedia but not the English one.

Matthews is the subject of my next post, so I won't say more about him here. And I would guess that nearly all of you are familiar with the Wikipedia, the web encyclopedia that anyone can edit. (Before you say anything, I know about the problems with Wikipedia, ranging from factual mistakes to slanderous articles, but I consider it a very useful reference site, and I always double-check anything I read there if it is something I need to be certain about.)

So while I was checking out Matthews, I looked at the Machin-related articles. There are some in both English and French, though they are different. In the English edition, someone went to a lot of trouble to put in a list of Machins, including swatches of color that indicate the color of the stamp. On the other hand, the French article about the Machin series is considerably more comprehensive. And although there's no English article about Matthews, there is one for Douglas Myall.

If you want to look for yourself, here are the links.

English version:

Machin series

List of Machin stamps

Arnold Machin

Douglas Myall

French version:

Jeffery Matthews

Machin stamps

Arnold Machin

So by now you are asking where Google comes in. Well, I can read a little French but there's a lot I don't understand. So, just for fun, I thought I would use Google's language tools to translate some of the French pages. The translation is, shall I say, a little uneven.

Some of the funny translations:

"Arnold Thing" because Google translates the word "machin" as "thing." (And you'll notice the inconsistency, sometimes Machin's name is properly left as it should be, and other times it is translated.)

"Royal Email"

"Island of Man"

Go ahead and try it.

And if you would like to start an English language entry for Jeffery Matthews, go right ahead!

--Larry

The Hedgecoe Mystery

Last April, Roy posted an entry about Professor John Hedgecoe. Hedgecoe has been a slightly controversial figure in the history of the Machins.

Hedgecoe first came to my attention in 2001 when he won a suit against Royal Mail. Royal Mail had denied that Hedgecoe played any part in the development of the Machin. Hedgecoe claimed he did participate and therefore Royal Mail’s statement was libel. The court agreed with Hedgecoe and Royal Mail settled for an undisclosed amount of money.

The question for us collectors is exactly what role Hedgecoe played. Unfortunately, this question is not likely ever to be answered with certainty. However, more information has come to light since Roy’s post – specifically in Douglas Muir’s book, A Timeless Classic: The Evolution of Machin’s Icon. Also, Hedgecoe was interviewed in the July, 2007 issue of Stamp & Coin Mart magazine, providing some additional information.

In the interview, Hedgecoe claimed his important role was based on two things he had done: taking the photos of the Queen on which Machin based his plaster cast and taking the photos of the final cast that were then used to create the stamp.

The first claim is partly true. Hedgecoe’s photographs were used by Machin, but they were not the only ones. Machin started working on the stamp before Hedgecoe took his photographs. Most of his initial work was done using photographs of the casts that he made a few years earlier for the decimal coins (and those were done based on his own sketches created during four sittings with the Queen).

As Machin was developing his design, some members of the Stamp Advisory Committee and some artists, including David Gentleman, thought that a design based on a photograph, rather than a sculpture, should be seriously considered. None of the existing photographs of the Queen was considered suitable, so Hedgecoe was brought in to take new photographs. David Gentleman then produced some designs based on Hedgecoe’s photographs. One of the photographs and some of Gentleman’s designs can be seen here on the British Postal Museum & Archive’s web site.

After further evaluation, it was decided that Machin’s approach was the best. However, Machin was working with photos that had the Queen wearing a tiara. Hedgecoe’s photographs were taken with the Queen wearing a diadem, the same one that Queen Victoria wore on the stamps of her reign. It was decided that Machin should change his design to include the diadem, and he used Hedgecoe’s photographs as reference material when he did so.

Hedgecoe’s photographs, then, did play an important role, but they were certainly not the sole photographs used by Machin.

Hedgecoe’s second claim, that he took the photograph of the cast that was then used for the stamp, may also be partly true. Machin himself, in his memoirs, says that the photograph used for the stamp was taken outdoors, outside the office of Harrison and Sons, the printer. That photograph was taken on a “misty autumn” day “using a mahogany Victorian camera and a photographer with a black sheet over his head.”

In the interview, Hedgecoe claims that any photograph taken outdoors would be too dark, and it was his photograph, taken indoors, that was used.

Muir notes that the first batch of Machins had two different portraits, one for stamps with a solid background and one for stamps with a gradated (gradually changing from dark at left to light at right) background. Therefore, there must have been at least two final casts and at least two photographs that were used. It is possible, but not known for sure, that Hedgecoe took one of the two photographs.

Muir did extensive research on the history of the Machins, and sadly he could not verify which photographs were actually used for the stamps and who took those photographs. Unless some document is discovered in the future, we will never know for sure.

I very strongly recommend Douglas Muir’s book to all Machin collectors. The image at the top of this post is the cover of the book. You can buy it directly from the BPMA. There are also two related displays on the BPMA web site, Elizabeth: Queen and Icon and Timeless and Classic: Elizabeth Queen and Icon.

--Larry