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Friday 20 March 2009

Adrian Adds To The Debate









These are actual images of the new value Machins issued for the April 09 rate rise. Sorry I do not yet have a cylinder block to show you. Thanks for your comments (please keep them coming)

Adrian has now blogged about this RM misinformation sent to customers with standing orders and he has produced a blow up of one of their images (nicked from Ade and posted here below).

You will notice this a very convincing image of a self adhesive block, so it is understandable how Dave jumped to conclusions before seeing the actual stamps sent to key account customers. The image is even the same as the previous De La Rue (slit) issues, minus the slits, the format is even the same right down to the gutters between the stamps.
I may be talking rubbish and perhaps I should not speculate but I can not see Royal Mail producing this information for the sake of it, so my theory is that this SHOULD have been the format for this issue, they may have had problems at the printers with the new technology, remember this is just a theory, but if we think about it in a logical way it seems to pan out.

If it is correct, then we can expect future printings, Machins and Country definitives to be of the self adhesive type with this format, it is also possible that security slits and security markings (as previous De La Rue and Walsall Design Classic booklets ) will be incorporated on the future sheets.
They will have kiss & die perforations too. Great fun eh?
Remember we still have the De La Rue business sheets to come and several more Walsall booklets at the end of the month. Look for oddities and errors of all sorts. This is when we tend to find them ( on the change over).

Over to you again for your thoughts. You can see Adrian's post here.
Thanks Ian.

6 comments:

Ian - Norvic said...

Far be it for me to agree (that you are talking rubbish) :-)

But... I think a lot of this publicity material is outsourced and released without being properly checked by Royal Mail. Remember the 'Celebrating Wales' MS - the bottom right-hand Country Definitive had a metallic red dragon in all the publicity material and at one stage when I queried this it was confirmed as correct! Of course it wasn't, the sheet appeared with the dragon in silver as it should be.

A few years ago, possibly July 2002, only one of the 'higher value' country stamps was reissued at new rates. On that occasion the new stamps, presentation pack and FDCs in 'Preview' all used the WRONG design, ie the design of the value which was NOT being replaced. When I phoned Tallents House to ask if i was right that from then on there would be two current values in the same design there was a deathly hush at the other end of the phone, a penny dropped and they admitted that the publicity images were all incorrect.

Mind you, it all adds to the fun of discovery, doesn't it?

Ian - Norvic said...

Images of two blocks now on my blog at http://norphil.blogspot.com/2009/03/31-march-cylinder-blocks-of-6-and-not.html

Adrian said...

And wasn't it the case that in 1997, when the "new image" Machins were to be released that the bumph showed stamps without any white borders? So, anything goes apparently, and I wouldn't be surprised if we will never see stamps as depicted in this latest bulletin. But it is true that it seems quite a lot of work to come up with something so wide off the mark!

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, outsourcing. It has the same wonderful consequences here in the US.

I tend to agree with Roy. I think the original intention was for the March 31 stamps to be self-adhesive. Then there were obviously difficulties at the printer. The booklets and other issues scheduled for Feb. 17 could be (and were) deferred until later. The March 31 issues for the new rates could not be delayed, so Royal Mail and the printer went back to the traditional water-activated gum. No one bothered to correct the issue of Previews.

--Larry

Machin Man said...

We may get a better idea when the printing dates for these stamps are published.

These printing dates are normally in the region of a couple, maybe three months in of advance of the issue date.

Ian - Norvic said...

I found the image from the Royal Mail publicity in 2004 when they used the wrong image for the 40p country stamps - http://wilding.norvic-philatelics.co.uk/~ian/gbstamps/wrong40s.jpg
"Not prepared for use and never issued!"