Free Machin Album (but donate!)

I have often used Robin Harris' excellent Machin web site as a reference. I hadn't seen it recently, so I took a look the other day.

I discovered that Robin is offering four sets of album pages for Machins. The first album, 'Basic,' features every major value and color. Right now that includes 449 different stamps. The illustrations on the pages are in color (making them nice to look at even with no real stamps on them!).

The album is a downloadable pdf file. Though Robin is offering it free, he does accept a $5 donation. I urge anyone who downloads the pages to make the donation to help Robin cover his costs and indirectly thank him for his excellent web site.

The second album is 'Novice' level, which includes varieties that need some basic collecting tools to identify. The tools include a perforation gauge, magnifying glass and ultraviolet lamp. There are two versions, one organized by type, the other by denomination.

This album costs $30 Canadian, but there are two free four-page samples that will give you an idea of the varieties that are included.

Still to come are 'Intermediate' and 'Specialized' level versions.

The page offering the albums has a nice checklist that compares the four versions. Payment is made through Paypal, so credit cards are accepted and currency conversion is not a problem.

--Larry

PS Robin, I hope you don't mind that I 'borrowed' your site logo for this post.

Double Yikes!

Barely had the pixels dried on my last post when a new version of the Horizon labels appeared, creating even more varieties to collect. Information is here and here.

And a list of all 22 indicators is here.

--Larry

17...22...Yikes!

The big Gold labels with the Machin portrait, known as Horizon labels from the name of the computer that creates them at the post office, were introduced last year and now are in use nationwide.

Each label has a 1, 2 or 3 character code at the top to indicate the service that the label is paying for. The first trial label had code SD for Special Delivery. I'm not sure what the A is for, but another example is 1LG for first-class large letter.

For each service indicator, there are four varities. The ones used in Wales have Welsh text in addition to English. Also, a new version of the Horizon system has a thinner typeface. So there are two language versions in each of two typefaces.

In his Deegam report 89, published on July 27, Douglas Myall published a list of 17 different service indicators, making 68 different labels available.

Subsequently, he discovered five more services (to be described in his next report in October), making 22 indicators and 88 different labels.

Let me know when you've got them all!

--Larry

PS I should explain the title. In American football, the quarterback is the guy who gets the ball from the center and puts it in play. The strategy for the play is generally decided in advance, but just before he gets the ball, the quarterback can decide to change the play by calling out a series of numbers and colors. This is called an "audible." Then, when he's ready to get get the ball, he calls "hike". So he might call out "34...52...Hike." I suspect collectors of these labels may do something similar when they see Douglas' reports.

Faststamps Lose Their Head

Their Machin head, that is.

About two years ago, the Machin world was all aflutter with the introduction of postage labels featuring the Machin portrait. They are variously called Faststamps and Post & Go labels (after the name of the machine from which they are purchased). One is pictured above.

Now, Royal Mail has announced that the Machin design will be replaced with pictorial images of birds, starting on September 17. The new labels are pictured on Ian Billings' blog here and on the Postage Labels UK site here.

At the time the Machin labels were released, Royal Mail said that the use of the Machin design was to have a consistent brand image across all its products.

Now, I guess the Royal Mail brand has gone to the birds.

And for Machin collectors, the Post & Go labels have Come & Gone.

--Larry

Deegam Profiles

Lately I've been trying to catch up on some long overdue organization, and I've been using Douglas Myall's profiles as my instant writeup.

I should say first that my preference for storing a specialized collection such as my Machins has always been stock pages. I collect according to my interests and happenstance. For example, there are some Machins for which I have cylinder and/or date blocks, but there are others for which I have no interest in blocks. And sometimes I may get blocks that I didn't particularly want - from a friend, or a bargain on eBay or at a dealer - and then I put them in my collection.

So with stock pages, I can have whatever I want and in the way I want the items organized. And, after I've acquired all the stamps I want, there are no blank spaces!

For writeups, I do one of two things. In some cases, I do my writeup on plain paper and arrange it so the writeup faces the stock page. The writeup page is on the left and the stock page on the right.

The other way I do my writeup is to use Myall's profiles. Profiles are stamp-sized labels with a full description of the stamp using Deegam notations. The label reflects the actual perforations (or simulated perfs for self-adhesives) and whatever phosphor is applied to the stamp.

I put the profile on the left and the copy or copies of the stamp to its right.

Myall provides the profiles on the CD-ROM with the Deegam Handbook, and profiles for new issues are supplied in the Deegam Reports. He provides profiles for all the recognized varieties, and obviously that gives me the flexibility to use whichever ones I want.

He even provides some blank profiles for noting other varieties or characteristics, but I confess that sometimes I just use a blank piece of paper that is the same size.

There's a sample profile at the top of this post. It's from Myall's web site. I was going to explain all the notations, but I'll leave that as an exercise for you. The explanation is on Myall's profiles page.

If you're not familiar with Douglas Myall's Complete Deegam Machin Handbook and other publications, you can visit his web site here, and Roy has some comments on his web site here.

So, kudos to Douglas Myall for a very innovative and useful addition to Machin collecting. Now, I wish someone would do something similar for booklets.

--Larry