The 2001 Arnold Machin Retrospective

I love living in coastal California, but as a long-time Machin Maniac, I often wish I lived closer to London. One of those times was in 2001, when I learned about the retrospective exhibition of Arnold Machin's work held at the Royal Academy Schools.

I got an brochure about the exhibition and put information about it and a number of images from it on my web site.

Recently, I purchased the catalogue of the exhibition, pictured above. It includes a brief biography, a list of the 260 items displayed, a chronology of his life, and excerpts from his autobiography.

Included were images of several of Machin's preliminary sketches plus some trials and essays for his stamp and, of course, one of the final plaster casts. I think all of these have been illustrated elsewhere, including in Douglas Muir's 2007 book, A Timeless Classic: The Evolution of Machin's Icon. (Available here.)

The key quote from his autobiography is this:

Until now it was still thought that the stamp would follow a similar format as before, incorporating lettering in a frame containing the portrait, but when we looked at the image that was to be used I commented to George York (Design Director at Harrison and Sons): 'It looks so fine and dignified without a frame or lettering, is it really necessary to include them?' He spoke to the Post Office and to our delight it was agreed that everything could be omitted except the values. So the stamp design was then concluded. I am convinced that had I not been allowed to work out the design with the manufacturers the final result would have been very different and far less successful.

Here's a little more background about Machin. And just for fun, here's a chess piece that he did. You can click Next and Previous to see the others.

--Larry

Oh, and about living near London...when I was there for two weeks in May, I saw the sun for a total of about 15 minutes. That's why I'm in California.

Machin Color Trials

The BPMA is currently showing an exhibit titled "Treasures of the Archive." It is part of the London 2010 Festival of Stamps and will remain on display until next spring. There's an online version of the exhibit here.

One of Arnold Machin's plaster casts is included in the display, but of more interest to me was a sheet of Machin color trials. The most interesting of these was the last (fifth) row that showed five metallic colors. The accompanying text says that these metallic trials were "recently discovered." Curator Douglas Muir told me that meant they were discovered after he wrote his 1997 book, A Timeless Classic: The evolution of Machin's icon.

For the record, here are the trials displayed on the page. My color names are not precise, and the lighting was dim, so just take these as giving a general idea of what is shown.

Row 1: Dark colors
Dark blue
Crimson (similar to issued pre-decimal 6d)
Dark green
Purple

Row 2: Dark colors
Red brown
Olive
Deep violet
Black

Row 3: Light gradated colors with dark heads
Pale violet
Dark pink
Tan
Green

Row 4: Bicolored
Black with light green(?) head
Black with orange head
Dark blue with pink head (similar to issued 1977 £5)
Black with grey head

Row 5: Metallic
Gold background with black head and value, matte
(there were three of these that appeared identical)
Silver background with lighter silver head and value, shiny
Gold background with light gold head, matte

(Many thanks to Glenn Morgan, who confirmed some of the colors when I couldn't interpret my scrawled notes after I returned home.)

--Larry

Is this a Machin stamp?

Speaking of Robin Harris, on his page with the new issues of 2010, he pictures this double-header issued earlier this year and asks "Is this a Machin issue?". I noticed he made a slight change, because previousy he asked "Is this a Machin stamp?".

I prefer to answer his earlier question, to which I say, yes, this is a Machin and yes, this is a stamp.

I consider this a Machin because the Machin portrait is a central element of the design. (When I'm feeling persnickety, I claim that the only true Machin is the original design, because that's the one stamp that Arnold Machin designed. All the variations were done by someone else using Machin's portrait. For example, the 1990 anniversary issue with Queen Victoria would be a "Matthews" instead. But I'm not persnickety today. Nor am I pernickety.)

I consider this a stamp, and that's a bit more interesting because of the recent plethora of labels featuring the Machin portrait. I'll go out on a limb and define a stamp as a prepaid postage label that has been completely printed before reaching the post office or patron. Anything that has some part of it printed at the post office remains a label.

(And what of these completely-printed versions that are sold to collectors? I would agree that they are stamps, but they are purely philatelic in nature and thus outside my own collecting interests.)

So that's my answer to Robin. But there's another consideration. Royal Mail has claimed that this stamp is a definitive, just like the everyday Machins. To this, I think we can safely say, "Nonsense!"

If nothing else, this stamp does not have the security features that now grace all first-class definitives. It doesn't even have elliptical perforations!

The last time Royal Mail issued a similar stamp, the aforementioned 1990 penny black anniversary issue, the stamps were issued in both booklet and sheet format, and the regular Machins were taken off-sale for the duration. No such effort was made for this stamp.

So I consider this stamp a commemorative (or special issue) version of a Machin, not a definitive. I wouldn't even call it a defino-memorative.

--Larry