Machin News June 2010

Updated 3rd June 2010

Here is a preview of a first day cover showing the 3rd Machin / Olympic stamps Retail booklet. Due for release on 27th July 2010.

The 1st class special issues depict: Paralympic Rowing, and Paralympic Table tennis

Two more new booklets (Machin definitives) have been penciled in for release on 19 August 2010. According to Royal Mail these will be Retail booklets with printer's name removed. The booklets are said to be 12 x 2nd class and 6 x 1st class. No doubt with security code MA10

Ian Billings has confirmed this news (above) on his blog, he also announced that "the 1st class gold counter sheet (no source code) has now appeared at a certain post office counter with security code MA10." This also has a change to the the security slits.

Ian goes on to say "it has a printing date of 10/03/10 and on this new printing we now have nicks in the top and the bottom of the slit. This brings them into line with Walsall booklet printings."

Keep your eyes peeled for the second class counter sheets with the same changes, these will surely follow when new stocks are needed.

A couple of new printing dates for counter sheet security self adhesives have been reported:

1st class Large D1D1 / D1 - 24/03/09
2nd class Large D1D1 / D1 - 25/02/09

1st class D1D1 / D1 - 10/03/10

2nd class D1D1 /D1 - 09/03/09
1st recorded D1D1/ D1 - 16/10/09 -19/10/09
1st recorded Large D1D1 /D1 -21/10/09

£1.50 value D1D1 / D1 - 13/02/09

These have now been added to the master list of De La Rue self adhesives

£3.00 value D1D1 /D1 - 23/02/09 (this was reported in error) it appears we had already listed this date)

When I get the chance I will update the Dunstable-dates-and-cylinder-numbers (with conventional gum) this has not been updated for some time.

New values issued for the rate rise have now been added to the Dunstable list and a few new dates for earlier issues.

01p - D2D1 - 27/02/08 -28/02/08
05p - D2D2 -04/03/08
10p - D2D1 - 04/03/08 - 05/03/08 - 06/11/08
54p - D1D122/01/09 -29/01/09
60p - D1D121/01/10 - 22/01/10
67p - D1D122/01/10 - 23/01/10
88p - D1D123/01/10 - 25/01/10
90p - D1D125/01/10
£1 - D1D1 Ruby _ 18/03/08
£1.46p D1D1 - 26/01/10

More June news will be added here as we receive it.

Links to Posts 401 - 500

Last week we reached a milestone in the fact that we surpassed the 500 mark in postings. Quite an achievement.

When we started this blog we had no idea it would be so well read. I bet with a bit of luck with the readers help we can add another 100 pages by the end of this year.


Here is the latest edition to the index Pages. This will join its counterparts number 1 -200, 201 - 300 and 301 - 400 in the left margin.

Start date for this series of links is 4 October 2009. Do not forget to read the comments left on site, this must amount to another 100 + posts in their own right.

1st Class Silver & Gold

A New Link Added

News Of Two More Machins In 2009

Litho v Gravure

Questions, Questions !

Recorded Delivery Machins

British Design Classics II Prestige Book

Olympic & Paralympic Games

Video posted to Youtube

A Second Machin Cast

Machin News December 09

Earlier Silver Machins

Recorded Delivery Machins

Enlarged, Engraved, Rotated

R S Prestige Pane & Cover

Walsall D1 D1 D1 D1 D1 ??

1st class gold with four security slits.

The Little Fairy

2nd Machin Cast Sells At Auction

Reprint of 12 x 1st-class - No Printers Imprint

Christmas Greetings

Are Machins Boring?

Secu - ripped

Got Any Small Change Guv?

Suspect Stamps

TCTC Notations

Design Classics II Prestige Book

Machin News January 2010

Cartor Continue To Use Garamond Numerals

Nothing To Do With Stamps

New London 2010 Postcard

April 2010, Price Rises

Spare a thought for the good old British Postie.

More On Price Increases

Festival Of Stamps Booklet

Private Machin Overprints

Booklet Classic Album Cover & A Bit of Snow

Royal Mail Jump On The eBay Band Wagon

A Bargain On eBay

Interesting Figure by Arnold Machin "Sea Horse"

Free Publications

Five International Stamp Booklets

Universal Stamps Continued

April Price Rise

Smilers Airmail Stamps

Airmail Machins (Clarification)

Do Not Waste Your Money

Volume 4 Continued (add to the debate)

Another Double Headed Machin

Special Coils for FDCs

Festival of Stamps - Prestige Stamp Book (01)

Machin News February 2010

Having Fun with Photoshop

The Royal Society prestige Booklet

Have De La Rue Mended The Errors Of Their Ways?

Recapping On Recent Errors

Spot The Difference

Anonymous wrote

Go Compare

Hints & Tips Double Check Your Kilo Ware

Changing Pace, Changing Face

Waiting For News

Ronsonol for removing self-adhesive Machins

Auction Fever

Blast From The Past

Festival of Stamps Prestige Book

Machin News March 2010

2010 Exhibition Machin Miniature Sheet

The Se -Tenant Pairs Story

The End of Make-Up Rate Machins

Revised Presentation Pack

Back To Normal

The Bookmark Journal

Machin News March 2010 Update

Britain Alone Machin Pane

20gr Airmail Stamps

Machin News April 2010

Welsh - Gold Machin Horizon Label?

New Coils of 500 & 1000

Machin Colour Trials

Jumelle Press Colour Trials Continued

MCC 2010 Specialised Machin Catalogue

Decimal Wildings

St George & The Dragon

1st Class Machin Mugs or What?

Machin News May 2010

What's in a name?

Phosphor Tags on Machin Miniature Sheet

A Few of The Latest Phosphor Errors

Codified 50p From SA Prestige Pane

Two More New Stamps Coded MA10

FOYAL Becomes MFIL

Inundated With Stamps In 2009

What A Difference A Nick Makes

London 2010 Inset Bands

The Fat Lady Has Not Sung Yet

A Different Kind of Machin Collection

Arnold Machin Tidbit

Another Machin Nutter

Hedgecoe's Photo of the Queen on eBay

More On Security Codes

2 Types of Europe and Worldwide 20gr Stamps

Machin Bust Is Grand Prix Prize

Quoting from the Looney tunes Cartoons " that's it folks" another 100 + posts listed . All for the Machin Nutters amusement. Do not forget to add your input, and hopefully with your help we can keep bringing you Machin News long in the future.

Many thanks to all, please keep the emails and comments coming.

Roy & Larry

Hidden Code Types

It seems my previous post on hidden code types has not helped, but has actually confused a lot of collectors.


In order to try to explain these types in plain language I have now managed to find some images on the web which show the position of the wording compared to the diadem, this may help.


Type I: This is found on stamps on which the word 'MAIL' is unchanged and also with the word 'MAIL' having a substitution of the letter 'A'. This code is situated across the top of the diadem.

Type II: is shown, with the word FOYAL forming from (coming out of) the central cross of the diadem.

Type III: Is shown with the word changed to 'ROYBL' forming from (coming out of) the front jewels of the diadem.

In reality the secondary codes MAIO, indicating the year of issue should also be placed in a different grid positions on these stamps, but will (should) correspond to the same three code types shown.

Thanks go to Delta Stamps for the information and images.

Deegam reports

Another news snippet that has come my way via Charlie and the Machin Forum.


"You may also like to know that The latest Deegam report has been put on the website for those who are subscribers."

Machin Bust Is Grand Prix Prize

Many Thanks to Seb who sent me details of this super reproduction mock up of the Machin Bust.

It was awarded for the best exhibit (Grand prix) at the London 2010 international stamp exhibition.

A picture can be found on the last page (page 45) of this document from Palmares. You will need Adobe Acrobat to open it.

Another email from Ian Rose.

"On your blog you note that Glen Morgan has asked (of the recent self adhesive prestige book pane):-

And will there be a different version in the PSB to those used on the covers?

I have only seen a couple of the panes intended for first day covers, but there was one of each of the two types described by Ian in his post. For what it is worth, I did not see any differences between the panes intended for first day covers and the panes that were in the prestige booklets."

Thanks also go to Ian for his comments.

2 Types of Europe and Worldwide 20gr Stamps

With so much going on and so many new issues this year I am not sure if this has been reported already.

The associated presentation pack (Pack No 86) which accompanied the issue for new rate stamps in April included the new 20gr Europe and Worldwide stamps and also the 'Recorded Signed For' stamps.

It has just come to my attention that the Europe and Worldwide stamps are unprinted on the back of the carrier paper, indicating (like previous issues of this type) they were specially produced for presentation packs.

More news

We still have not had any reports of phosphor shifts from the 2010 Machin Exhibition sheets, but Ian Billings has found some sheets with what is described as a printing flaw. "Two different ring flaws have been found on the 1p stamp"

They look to be caused by a foreign object which has been deposited on the printing plate, perhaps a bit of grit?

Glenn Morgan recently posed a question in reply to a previous post.

Question - "how is the self-adhesive PSB pane going to be peeled off and affixed by Royal Mail machinery to the covers that it is selling? Will there be ties to hold each stamp to its matrix? And will there be a different version in the PSB to those used on the covers."

Ian has also answered this question to a degree, you can see this post here

More On Security Codes

When ever we get a new feature or change of design it takes a little time for all the reports from different people to gel together .

I have just found out that the codes in the word ROYAL MAIL have been catalogued into (3) three different types, this is due to the position of the text in relation to the head.


TYPE I

Standard size definitive NVI ex Booklets of 6, 12, Business Sheets and Rolls with the word 'MAIL' unchanged and with the word 'MAIL' having a substitution of the letter 'A'

This type has also been allocated to the self adhesive stamps from the recent Prestige Booklet MPIL shown above.


Type II

Large NVI ex Booklets of 4 with the word 'ROYAL' unchanged and the word 'ROYAL' with a change to 'FOYAL', coming out of the central cross of the diadem.

Type IIA

New 2010 booklets of 1st & 2nd class Large. Also 1st class large from business sheets. 'MFIL' in the third wavy line, instead of 'FOYAL' in the second wavy line Apearing from the right of the central Diadem.

Type III

Large NVI ex Business Sheets with the word 'ROYAL' changed to 'ROYBL' coming out of the front jewels of the diadem.

Here is a full list of the stamps and type of wavy text (s) known to date

ROYAL MAIL
type 1
Counter sheets 50p and high values

ROYAL MAIL
type 1
50 x 2nd and 50 x 1st Counter sheets

ROYAL MCIL
type I
Customised Booklets

ROYAL MRIL
type I
10,000 x 2nd and 10,000 x 1st Coils (Rolls)
x 500 and x 1000 Coils (Rolls) non self adhesive / no slits

ROYAL MSIL
type I
6x1st Booklets

ROYAL MTIL
type I
12 x 2nd and 12 x 1st Booklets

ROYAL MBIL
type I
100 x 2nd and 100 x 1st Business Sheets

ROYAL MPIL
type I
2 x 50p, 2 x 2nd and 4 x 1st mixed pane Prestige Booklet

ROYAL MAIL
type II
50 x 2nd and 50 x 1st Counter sheets

FOYAL MAIL
type II
4 x 2nd Large and 4 x 1st Large Booklets

ROYAL MFIL
type IIA
4 x 2nd Large and 4 x 1st Large Booklets (MA10 new)

ROYAL MBIL
Type IIA 1st class business sheets (MA10 new)

ROYBL MAIL
type III
50 x 2nd Large and 50 x 1st Large Business Sheets

Fast Stamps and Horizon Labels have not been catalogued into (types) or added to this group (at this time) as far as I am aware.

Hedgecoe's Photo of the Queen on eBay

A photograph of the Queen taken by John Hedgecoe in 1966, during Arnold Machin's development of the stamp that would bear his name, has shown up on eBay.

Hedgecoe took a series of photos which were then reviewed by the Queen. She wrote her opinion on each one, most saying "no" or "good." Supposedly, this is the only one on which she wrote "yes."



Hedgecoe's involvement with the design was discussed previously on this blog here, here and here. It remains controversial to this day, especially because recently Hedgecoe has trumpeted his version of the story for his own personal gain.

The short version, as I understand it, is that Hedgecoe definitely took photos of the Queen and Machin did use at least one of these as he updated his design from showing the Queen with a tiara to her with the diadem, as shown in this photo. The diadem appears on the stamp.

Hedgecoe also claims that he took at least one of the final photos of Machin's bust which was then used in the photogravure process of creating the actual stamp. To my knowledge, there's no evidence one way or the other whether his photo was actually used.

So, if you have a spare quarter-million pounds, get busy and Buy It Now.

--Larry

Another Machin Nutter

On Wednesday I was guest speaker at The Torrevieja Philatelic Society, where I did a presentation on the Machin. This went down very well and was attended by about 30 people.

I was suprised to learn that at least a dozen of the members collected Machins in one form or another and we had a questions and answers half hour after the talk.

Most of the questions asked referred to the new security slit stamps, of which I mentioned in the presentation. Along with some images copied from this and Ian's blog (they the members) found them fascinating, the dates incorporated into the various stamps along with the different booklet codes etc was news to the majority.

Obviously they did not follow our blogs, so I borrowed a lap top to show them what they are missing. Needless to say we now have another load of regular visitors, one chap sent me an e-mail today informing me he stayed up all night and read the whole 498 posts.

Another Machin nutter joins the fold.

Arnold Machin Tidbit

A while ago I searched Google Books to see what they had regarding Arnold Machin. I came across a book titled The Mining Engineer published by the Institution of Mining Engineers in 1994. Included in it was a publication from 1969. The small excerpt which was displayed to me was:

Mr Arnold Machin, OBE, RA has been commissioned to design the gold medal to be given to winners of the recently announced £25,000 MacRobert award for engineers. This award is hailed as "a Nobel prize for engineers."

I thought you would like to know.

--Larry

A Different Kind of Machin Collection

The BPMA blog announced recently that they and Royal Mail have licensed the Machin image to a company called Gift Republic. Gift Republic has developed what they call their “Stamp Collection” – a range of household items featuring images of Machin stamps, complete with elliptical perfs.

Included in the range are gift cards, notebooks and mugs.

Shipping charges to the US are currently outrageous, but as you can see from my comment and their reply on the blog, they hope to have a US distributor in the future.

The items were on sale at the Royal Mail booth at London 2010, so I purchased the A5 spiral-bound notebook.

The colors of the Machins on these items are somewhat close to the actual colors … except that they turned the 1p blue! That spoils the effect for me - I don't understand why they didn't just go and get an actual dark blue Machin instead.

So if you'd like to take your notes in a Machin notebook, send your friends a Machin card, or drink your coffee from a Machin mug, now you can do it!

--Larry

The Fat Lady Has Not Sung Yet

It is now May 15th, and the latest Prestige booklet (A fourth of this year) 'Britain Alone' has been issued (13th May 2010) priced at £ 9.76. The Machin pane (Pane 1) Contains 2 x 10p, 2 x 60p and 4 x 5p, this value uses the correct Jeffery Matthews typeface. It is printed in Litho by Cartor.

Stanley Gibbons have published Volume 4 Part 2 of their Queen Elizabeth II Decimal Definitive Issues Specialised Stamp Catalogue. This was reported (supposed) to go on sale on 12th May 2010.

Volume 4 part 2 will cover the NVI issues, self adhesives, Country issues and Castle High Values, etc.

The Machin Collectors Club have published a 3rd reprint of their specialised catalogue in two volumes. This is now on sale.


Everyone I know, or converse with on the net has spent a small fortune on all the latest issues over the last few months. I bet you all thought the fat lady has sung and now it was all over regarding new issues for a while.

Not Quite,

Here a just a few more Machin products that we know about and are due for release over the coming months.


The roll-out of new versions of Horizon labels is Imminent, in fact it has already started.

June 2010:

A Custom Retail 6 x 1st NVI Booklet will be issued on 15th June 2010, special issue mammals containing two stamps (Otter and Hedgehog). This will be coded Machins MAIO / MCIL

July 2010

The third 6 x 1st Custom Retail NVI Booklet in the series of London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be on 27th July 2010.

September 2010

The fifth 6 x 1st NVI Booklet Custom Retail in the series of British Design Classics will be issued on 15th September 2010.

October 2010

The fourth 6 x 1st NVI Booklet Custom Retail in the series of London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be issued on 12th October 2010.

Machin definitive singles from these booklets are expected to be the same as previous stamps from this source, Code MAIO / MCIL, however,saying this anything could this happen between now and then, so stay tuned and get saving your pocket money again !

London 2010 Inset Bands

NEW REPORTS
I have still yet to hear of any reports of short or inset bands from the 2010 Exhibition Machin miniature sheet, however we do have a couple of inset bands from other sources.

Kevin Baldry has sent me pics (shown top left) of stamps from the self adhesive pane with inset bands right (DG I2)

This is the pane from the Prestige Stamp Book (8th May) Pane 4 self-adhesive printed by Walsall Security Printers . We showed this pane in an earlier post. It contains 2 x 2nd class, 4 x 1st class, and 2 x 50p definitives with security features and the code MAIO / MPIL

A second report (left) also from Kevin shows stamps from the London Label Advertising booklet 6 x 1st code MAIO / MSIL with inst band left (DG I1).

These will be added to the short list published earlier and will no doubt be listed in specialist catalogues in the near future as:

1st 2 bar , code MAIO / MPIL (DG I2)
50p 2 bar, code MAIO / MPIL (DG I2)
1st 2 bar , code MAIO / MSIL (DG I1)

Many thanks Kevin for taking out the time to scan them and send them to me for publication.

What A Difference A Nick Makes

Security background codes and security cuts seem to be the topic of the week. Here is another e-mail from Kevin Baldry who advises me that the cuts on the FDC panes from the Prestige Booklet are different to the ones reported.

"I see from the blog the cuts on the recent PSB are T1 & T2, if you have any FDC from Tallents House with the booklet pane you will find they are again different all stamps are T2."

Thanks Kevin for the report.

Do you think specialists are their own worst enemies by recording every detail on new issues? It certainly makes life harder ( and more expensive) for those who collect at Deegam Level 3

Are we not going just that little bit over the top by taking to much notice of these different types of slits? What do you think?

Unendated With Stamps In 2009

According to a press release put out by StampNews.com,

In 2009, Japan issued more than 300 new stamps and France 210 stamps.
They are followed by those countries which issued from 100 to 150 stamps in 2009.

In decreasing order these are: Cuba, New Zealand, India, the Philippines, Russia and Portugal. The third group of countries – United Kingdom, Australia, China, Spain, Venezuela, Malaysia, USA, Thailand, Turkey, Italy, Indonesia, Isle of Man, Hungary, Mexico – issued from 70 to 100 stamps.

I do not think this sites statistics are very accurate.

PERHAPS THEY ARE REFERING TO STAMP PRODUCTS

FOYAL Becomes MFIL

I have had a e-mail from Ian Billings informing me of a change to the background code of the Large 1st and 2nd class stamps from booklets of four.

At the same time via comment Ian Price has confirmed this change.

"I have just obtained copies of these new booklets & noticed another change not mentioned in the base note. The position of the 'F' code has changed. It is now 'MFIL' in the third wavy line, instead of 'FOYAL' in the second wavy line"

Ian price also mentions a change to the security slits on the self adhesives obtainable from stamps from the Prestige booklet.

"The security cutouts on the Machins in the panes in my 2 copies of the PSB appear to be a new version. The top loop is uninterrupted (type 1) & the bottom loop is interrupted (type 2). This is the same for all of the stamps."


Thanks go to both Ian's for these reports.

Two More New Stamps Coded MA10

Ian Billings has updated his blog with news of his visit to the Stamp fair at the Business Design Centre, Islington, London.

AMENDED TEXT

The blog shows lots of pictures and news of two additions to the list of coded security stamps which were on sale there. These are 1st and second class large from booklets of 4. The codes seen on these stamps are ROYAL MFIL / MAIO

Interestingly Ian reports that the the packing caption shows that the 2nd class booklets were packed in February 2010, but the 1st class booklets were packed in December 2009!

Recently it was reported that The gold Machin Postage label had made a come back in Wales, these stamp labels were also available at the exhibition with Islington joining Wales.

Read Ian's account here

Codified 50p From SA Prestige Pane

Codified! Another new word in Machin dictionary.

I was tickled to read Garyhoneys account and use of this word on the Machin Forum when he described the 50p with code MPIL and MA10 in the background print.

Gary has now posted an image of the 50p value from this source, reproduced here above.

The addition of the MA10 codes on this pane makes me suspect that future self adhesive Prestige booklet panes are on the cards for next year, perhaps coded (or using Garry's word codified) with the numbers 2011.

Why else would Royal Mail add the year of issue to these panes? Thanks Gary for your pic and observations.

A Few of The Latest Phosphor Errors

Whilst most people are in London for the biggest philatelic bash of the decade, or they are making their way there. Here I am stuck on the Costa Blanca (do not say, poor sod, what a place to be stuck in) giving it all a miss.

For a host of reasons I can not make it. I am concerned about Volcanic ash and flight problems, a torn calf muscle which is giving me loads of jip and affecting my mobility, and if I am honest the main one being a shortage of funds.

I also have a disabled wife to look after,who although could in all honesty get by for a few days without me does not want to get by without me or want me to go. Anyway to save arguments I have decided to slum it out here for the duration of the event ;-(

For those who are going, I am sorry I missed you all and I hope you meet up with old and new friends, pick up some bargains and have a great time.

Do I sound as though I am feeling sorry for myself? I do not mean to (anyone know of a good divorce lawyer? :-)

Still, not to worry, its only a stamp showI tell my self, I can surf the web and whist I am at it pick up some info on the latest phosphor errors. Yes misplacements are still turning up and are commanding some high catalogue prices.


One Item i picked up a few weeks back.

Three Kings Miniature Sheet with short band bottom (DG S17) cat @ £20.00

Here are a few others to look out for

Machin Anniversary Miniature sheet:


Either inset left (DG I1) or short bands bottom DG S17). Both sheets have been given a max catalogue price of £50.00 each.

The ruby £1.00 has also been found with short bands bottom (DG S17) in the Machin Anniversary Prestige booklet . Cat @ £35.00

A second report describes the same pane with the Ruby £1.00 having inset bands left (DG I1) also cat @ £35.00.

Security Stamps 2009

A few have been reported to date:

1st class code B (DG I2) inset right catalogued at £11.00

1st class code C (DG I1) inset left catalogued at £ 7.50
1st class code C (DG S16) short at top catalogued at £ 7.50

2nd class code T (DG S2) short at bottom catalogued at £ 8.50

Thanks go to B.Alan (Stamps) Ltd Connoisseur Catalogue 2 Pinewood Avenue, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN14 5AF, UK.

Also thanks to Douglas Myall for continued permission to quote from his Deegam SIN system.

Thanks to Denis Stevens, I can show you the phosphor band layout of the 2010 Machin Exhibition sheet.

Glen actually gave me permission a few years back to use some of his images which are protected by copyright on my web site, in return for a permanent link to his site. I am hoping this permission still stands otherwise I am in trouble (again).

I recommend a visit to Denis,s site, his entries are cross referenced with Deegam numbers, Stanley Gibbons , Stoneham and Concise. He also has some useful information on Machins and GB stamps in general, not to mention the images which must have taken a lot of time to prepare and list.

I was pleasantly surprised to see actual phosphor bands on this sheet, rather than Optical Free Phosphor Paper which was used on the previous Matthews mini sheet.

A slight phosphor shift in any direction should produce some very nice errors (let me know if you find any)