Sir Nigel Continued

I have received quite a few emails in answer to the last post (many thanks) most remarking "what a beauty the Mallard is. The A4s are a terrific design.

I only had one negative reply (from Paul S), who asked me "To concentrate on Machins as steam engines are not stamps, steam is boring".

Well you can not please everyone can you? Sorry about that, I will get back to Machins Paul, after this short piece. Promise!!

Sorting through some bits that were tucked away with several other Railway covers I found this (left) designed and sold through Buckingham Covers.

It depicts the A4 pacific loco "Sir Nigel Gresley" number 60007 running at steam on the 50th anniversary of the speed record.


The 18p stamp in the right hand corner shows once again the Mallard. This stamp was issued on 10th May 1988. It is depicted from the GB Europa set Transport And Mail Services in the 1930s.

Below is a black and white photo of Sir Nigel Gresley standing in front of his namesake. It gives one a sense of proportion to the actual size of these massive metal beasts.

Now for you Paul, some Machin news although this is 2nd hand (from Ian's blog), I report this for the record, plus you may not have seen it yet.

Firstly Ian reports on 9th August a change to the security slits on De La Rue business sheets, these business sheets have now been found (normal sized 1st and 2nd class stamps) with type 2 slits (cut in the middle, top and bottom of the arcs).

This now gives us two more Machins to collect. No news of a change to the slits on business sheets of the Large PiP Machins yet, but it looks likely they will appear at some stage.

I will now pass you over to Ian's site and the original story.

Whilst you are there take a look at his latest report regarding shades etc from the latest Prestige stamp books, Treasures of the Archives and Royal Navy Uniforms


These are new stamps in their own right as they are printed in litho I think at 350 dpi by Cartor. If I am wrong about this I am sure someone will let me know. That is not a dig at you Paul .

More News, Douglas Myall has written to me with some more information on the 1p Machin with the Somaliland overprint. I am waiting for a reply from him with permission (if granted) to publish this.

To finish off today I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for my web site on top 50 stamp sites.

Please continue to to do so (once per day) when you can, I am now in spot number 4.