Happy New Year

The year 2011 is almost upon us, so what better time to wish all our readers A Happy and peaceful New Year. Lets hope it is a prosperous one.

It could also be another expensive year for stamp collectors . At this time we already know that the new year will bring heartache to some and joy to others, depending on your views about new issues! I will not go into the bulging programme set out by Royal Mail but will stick to Machin issues.

Already we can expect at least 10 new Machins to add to our collections. You can look forward to a few more from Prestige booklets, and new style retail booklets.

Be sure that with the help of other blogs, Machin Forums and Royal Mail publications ANY NEWS of Machin material or observations to them will be posted here in 2011 so please do continue to visit us and just as important please do continue to leave your comments.

It is also nice to be mentioned on other websites and blogs. Ian Billings who supplies a terrific amount of news to us is correct when he says " Cross-exchange of information is vital to keep these publications flowing with news."

Douglas Myall also deserves a mention for his dedication to the cause. As does the Modern British Philatelic Circle.

Another such site is The British Postal Museum & Archive which relates its history through the post. Machin Mania received a mention recently from this site in the post We Love your Blog . They go on to say "Machin Mania is an interesting and well-researched blog with Machin enthusiasts (and newcomers) in mind."

YOU can help to spread the word about Machin Mania with a mention or link from your web sites, a mention to your groups, in your publications and forums would also help.

Once again from myself and Larry and all those who post replies, thank you for your support.

Nine New Machins

Thanks to Robert


The RM tariff guide for 2011 reveals that the new Machin values to be issued for the increase are 68p, 76p, £1.10 & £1.65. These will be issued in self-adhesive sheets of 25.

When stocks run down the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p & 20p Machins will also be reissued in self-adhesive sheets of 25 but these will not have the iridescent Royal Mail overlay, unlike the tariff definitives mentioned above.

2011 Price Rises

We were warned in advance that Royal Mail were to increase there tariffs in April 2011 by a whopping 10%. it has now been confirmed that price rises will go across the board on all RM services by up to 13%.

There should be 3 or 4 new values added to the list of counter sheets come April. Just a quick look at how it will affect some of the stamp prices.

1st class up 5p to 46p
2nd class up 4p to 36p
Large 1st up 9p to 75p
Large 2nd up 7p to 58p
SD up to 100g up 40p to £5.45

Does this mean that your collection of mint NVIs have risen in value? With interest rates still set at 0.5% it could be better to save stamps rather than cash !!

Image Of the M11L Code

Copied from the Norvic Philatelics Blog

"As promised, and thanks to Richard's skills with his scanner, we can now show the first 2011 Machin security code."

This new variety will be found on Machin definitives from the Thunderbirds mixed booklet, due for release in January 2011. The code shown above (M11L) will be found at top left. The code MCIL (custom booklets) at top right.

Happy sorting in the new year. Ian writes "Like all booklets of 6 these should see early and widespread use and should be found on mail and in kilo ware by the end of January.

Another new find

Ians latest report concerns a new Machin find, Security Machins with no overprint - source unknown.

Rather than rewrite his work I pass you over to his blog via this link.

Message From Sue Holt

Thank you for your kind words in Machin Mania concerning the death of my
husband, Mike. He will be greatly missed . However, the business will
still continue and I would be grateful if you would make this clear in
your column.

My very best wishes

Sue Holt

Thunderbirds Are Go

It was suggested in November that the Thunderbirds booklet may have a new year code incorporated into the background print. I can now confirm (thanks to Norvic Philatelics) that this is the case, only with a little twist in the tail, Larry you owe me a 1p Machin ! !

Ian reports on his blog that is has the Year Code M11L - this has moved - it is not where the MA10 code is found on printings during 2010.

The background printing in the top left corner has the letters OYAL on the first line, and ALM11LR on the second line

Where MA10 was this year, in front of the Queen's forehead, it has reverted to MAIL, and the code for custom (MCIL) remains in the top right corner.

Ian informs us that the packing date for the issues he has seen is 04/11/10 and the bar code 5014721 127798. Many thanks Ian for this information.

Broadly Speaking

Terry Hunt asked the question "what are broad bands and how do they occur?"

These are found mostly on stamps where the phosphor has been printed or applied in error.

The best way to describe these errors is, they occur due to a phosphor shift.

A two band stamp can be found with one broad phosphor bar. I borrowed this image from the web which shows exactly what a broad band looks like.

If you have any questions regarding Machins, please do drop myself or Larry a line, if we know the answers we are more than happy to answer them on these pages.

Machin-o-phant

Those of us who were in London in May for the Festival of Stamps Exhibition couldn't fail to notice the Elephant Parade. Over 200 elephants (statues, that is) were scattered around the city. After the parade was over, they were auctioned off to raise money to help save the Asian Elephant from extinction.

What has this got to do with Machins? Well, one of the elephants was all wrapped for mailing, and it was franked with Machins. The elephant's name was (appropriately) Frank. It was created by a graphic artist who goes by the name Leinz.

Unfortunately, I didn't see Frank during my visit. In fact, I didn't know about him until he was featured in the December issue of the Philatelic Bulletin.

You can see more pictures of Frank here and a video of his construction here.

--Larry

Mike Holt

It is with great sadness and regret that I have to report Mike Holt has passed away. Full details of Mikes obituary have not yet been published.

Mike, who had many friends and colleagues from all over the world was from Stourbridge, West Midlands, Nr Birmingham in the UK.

A well known international philatelist, in particular a renowned collector / dealer in Queen Elizabeth II Machins since 1974.

Our sympathy goes out to his immediate family, truly a sad day for all and philately in particular. He will be sadly missed.

Julia from stamp magazine sums it up by saying " This will leave a huge hole in the Machin world now.

Rest in Peace Mike.

Cambridge University Machin Colour Trials of 1969 - Part 2

Part 1 is here.

The review of the colours was conducted by 39 female members of the Cambridge University Applied Psychology Unit's Research Panel. The members were asked to compare each of the 25 colors with itself and with the other 24 in a series of paired comparisons, making 325 in all. Half worked in daylight, the other half in white fluorescent light.

Each stamp pair was displayed for three-fourths of a second, with an interval of two seconds between pairs. The member wrote S (same) or D (different) for each pair and also indicated whether her judgment was certain, almost certain, fairly certain, not too sure, or guessing.

The number of errors in judging same or different was tallied, and the colours were ranked according to the number of errors in which each colour was involved.

The colour with the most errors was considered the most confusing, and it was eliminated. Further tests were then done with the remaining colours. (Incidentally, the most confusing colour was plum.)

Eventually, the 11 most confusing colours were dropped, leaving 14, which was the number needed for the new decimal series. The 14 tended to be brighter hues, which were found to be less confusing. (The least confusing colour was red.)

Shown above is a portion of the final 14-colour scheme with each colour allocated to one of the decimal values. The complete set of 14 can be seen here. This recommendation was sent to Don Beaumont at the Post Office.

(Ultimately, only 12 values were in the initial set. The 4 1/2p and 8p were not issued until 1973.)

Note: Tony's research indicated that the Research Panel consisted of 39 women. However, the 1972 book Britain in Miniature, produced by the Post Office, indicates the testing was done by 26 women and ten postmen. More about Britain in Miniature soon.

(To be continued)

Larry

More Forgeries Come To Light

Once again David Allwright has sent me a picture (copyright acknowledged) which is an unusual copy of another of the latest Machin forgery. However this one is with a difference as it is not only a forgery but one with part of the value tablet omitted.

David informed me that he has purchased several other copies (listed below) and made an offer on others which has now been accepted, these are listed in group two.

The list is as follows:

2 complete mint booklets
8 singles on individual covers
1 cover with 3 examples
1 special delivery cover with 10 examples on.

Group Two

1/
First type PiP 1st class forgery with Dec 04 clear postmark,
2/
First PiP 1st class forgery with misplaced perfs,
3/
The one mentioned above which is of the latest type (white head) with missing ST.

Many thanks David I am very grateful to you, I am sure our readers will find this news very interesting.

As these were purchased from the same vendor, it is my guess (I could be wrong) that the covers could have been manufactured by the same person.

I think this deserves a debate, what do you think?

Another Machin Forgery

I was intrigued to read a report in the August 2010 edition of Bookmark Journal (vol 40 - 01) of a new Machin forged booklet, 12 x 1st class gold.

The report implies that there are several factors that give this booklet away to the trained eye. Firstly the booklet cover, it mentions the card is quite thick and seemingly rigid, it measures 15mm x 56mm, which is slightly larger horizontally and shorter vertically than the genuine booklet it tries to imitate, which according to the author was issued in 2007 with PiP information on the cover.

The report continues with information describing details of the font used by the forgers, this in incorrect compared to the normal booklet. Noticeable on the bar code, phone number, printers imprint (Walsall) and the Royal Mail cruciform logo. Last but not least another factor gives this away as the notch indicating it is a 1st class booklet is of an irregular shape which is cut deeper.

The stamps are actually litho rather than gravure and the Queens Head is described as pale (almost white). The matrix is still intact on the pane and the kiss and die cut perforations are nothing like the real thing, these are sort of wavy lines more akin to crinkle cut. The stamps also appear off centre.

I have found details of used examples on the web which I will describe below and according to another source these forgeries (used stamps postmarked Sheffield) have also been listed on ebay at a ridiculous price, A used pair, possibly purposely manufactured by some enterprising seller no doubt.

I mentioned I have seen an example on the web this is shown by David Allwright
who displays some images of this forgery which I can produce here, these photographs are by kind permission of David and are copyright to Stamps n All.

On his website David writes "Just beginning to appear (early 2010) a new 1st class gold forgery Perfs same as the earlier PiP forgery, but now with 1st in bottom left corner."

This example shown is postally used but has no postmark.

If you wish to view more Machin Odities I have added Davids web page

GREAT BRITAIN LATEST MACHIN ODDITIES - FINDS to our list of links on site.

Machins 2011

I have been informed today that there will be at least three Prestige Booklets next year, it is not known if they will contain any Machin definitives.

The Provisional dates (including Prestige Booklets) for Machin issues in 2011 in order of release date these are:

11th January 6 x 1st-class stamp book - FAB -Thunderbirds

24th February 6 x 1st-class stamp book - British Heart Foundation

22nd March W W F Prestige Book . this will be printed in litho by Cartor. (From Ian Billings via comments) "The final pane will have Machins surrounding a label with the WWF panda logo."

22nd March 4 x 1st-class Large & 4 x 2nd-class Large booklets - cover design change?

March 31st for 3rd April Tariff change - New Machins & Country Regionals

5th May Morris and Company Prestige Book (Litho Cartor)

14th June 6 x 1st-class retail stamp book - Thomas the Tank Engine

9th September Centenary of UK Aerial Post Prestige Book

Let me start this page with a great big thank you to Larry for (once again) keeping the news flowing during the last few months. For those people that may be interested I am back at my desk for a few weeks, and will be returning to the UK on 10th January 2011 for another (hopefully) short stay and the completion of my hospital treatment.

Maybe if all goes to plan (touch wood) I will be around later in the new year to share some Machin news on a regular basis. And believe me although I am not permitted to disclose at this time there is plenty of Machin news in the pipeline.

One piece of news I can share at this time is - A second Machin / retail booklet is planned for 24 February 2011 entitled the British Heart Foundation.

It will contain 2 x 1st class British Heart Foundation special issues and 4 x 1st class gold security Machin definitives. They will be printed by Walsall Security Printers in gravure on self-adhesive paper.

STAY TUNED