My 50th Anniversary columns for Linn's Stamp News

For my last Great Britain columns for Linn's Stamp News, I decided to go out with a bang and summarize the history of the Machins in a format that would be accessible by Linn's readers. The main problem was how to organize it.

I quickly decided that a chronological organization would not work. There would be too many topics that appeared at various times, and it would be very hard for the reader to keep track of what was happening.

Instead, I chose to organize it by topic. I started with an introduction that I hoped would catch the reader's attention enough to want to continue reading. (You can tell me if you think I succeeded in the comments.) Then I continued with various topics: colors, fonts, currency change and non-denominated stamps, etc.

There's still some back-and-forth where I had to reference a topic that I covered previously or one that was covered later. Overall, though, I think it came out pretty well.

Those of you who are reading this blog probably won't learn much if anything new from the column, but I hope you'll take a look at it and at least read part of it. If you have any comments about it, please add them to this blog entry.

The first of the three parts was published a couple of days ago and is available on the Linn's web site. I don't know when the others will be published. It may be as much as month between each part. I'll post a link to the subsequent parts after they appear.

I am pleased that the editor, Donna Houseman, chose to highlight my column. I'm also pleased that Linn's has adopted a new format for their web site that places the illustrations within the text, as well as at the top. This makes it much easier to follow.

Many collectors no doubt have a simplified collection of Machins as part of a general Great Britain collection. I hope that these columns encourage those collectors to look more carefully at their Machins and perhaps expand their Machins beyond what they have so far. And maybe it will stimulate a few readers to start a Machin collection, in spite of the sheer volume of stamps.

--Larry

Thanks Go To FDC Producers

Today I wish to give thanks to producers of modern fist day of issue covers for giving us a glimpse of issues which for what ever reason dealers and bloggers like Ian Billings who have prior knowledge are forbidden to do. Thanks Ian we understand the reasons why (or why not) and also for what you do allow us to see.

Tony Buckingham and Adrian Bradbury are two cover producers who come directly to mind. I often refer to Adrian's cover designs (BFDC) which I admire greatly and thank him for sharing these with us. We now have a permanent link directed to his site.

As far as the 50th Anniversary of the Machin definitive goes Tony Buckingham does one better. As well as showing the miniature sheets he also gives us an insight to all the complete panes from the forth coming prestige booklet and the anniversary booklet of six x 1st class with the corresponding anniversary label. As a thank you to Tony a permanent link to Buckingham Covers will also be added to our links section.

Another website I admire is that of  Machins of Great Britain by Robin Harris / Adminware Corporation. Not only is this a valuable insight to every Machin issued with diagrams and images galore. It also gives the average to medium Machin collector advise and free up to date album pages to download in pdf form. There is also a pdf (also free) with advise and information simplifying the Machin. I have made a mental note to visit robins site more often.

Latest Stats

If you are a regular visitor you may have noticed a slight change to the header of the blog. As it is almost the 50th anniversary of our our favorite Icon i have reflected this in the design.

It is also 10 years since we started this blog so I have updated the header and text to reflect this.

Whilst I was in the settings mode I decided to have a look at some of the stats available to me. As the Machin is British I was bemused  to find that most of our readers come from the USA.

Many thanks to our American friends for your interest and also all our other readers where ever you are in the world. Have a nice Easter holiday.

Here is the lowdown on the the latest trending

United States	1897
United Kingdom	1445
Germany	135
Netherlands	32
France	31
Ukraine	18
Australia	17
Canada	15
China	15
Finland	6

Page views to date

Page views yesterday

419

Page views last month

11,670

Page views all time history

627,956

I would also once again say thank you to Larry for his valuable input and all the regular readers who visit and leave their comments. I have also added a couple of links to sites of interest. If you have time please check them out. Thanks once again. Happy anniversary......Roy

Machin Treasures at TPM

Cross Post has been the wonderful semi-annual publication of The Friends of The Postal Museum (TPM), formerly The Friends of the British Postal Museum and Archives, born as The Friends of the National Postal Museum. I say "has been" because The Friends - having survived several name changes - will disappear this year in favor of a membership scheme run by TPM. Therefore, Cross Post will be no more.

One of the highlights of Cross Post for us Machin Maniacs has been Don Staddon's regular column of various modern GB treasures in TPM/BPMA/NPM, often including Machinalia. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Machins, his last column reports on several Machin treasures in the archives. Sadly, it would not be appropriate for me to copy any of the illustrations, so my verbal descriptions will have to suffice.

In the early 90s, Jeffery Matthews was asked to look at the project to issue a secure £10 stamp. This of course ultimately led to the short-lived £10 Britannica. Matthews came up with a large, vertically-oriented stamp that featured the Machin portrait in the center surrounded by an engine-turned background reminiscent of the Penny Black and various designs from the Treasury Competition. He also included the four heraldic symbols: the rose, thistle, shamrock and leek. These were made up of small lines oriented in various directions, an idea which led to a similar technique being used on the £10 Britannia.

Matthews, as we know, designed the horizontal format Machin used for the original public self-adhesive trial in 1993. When Royal Mail discovered the postmarks could be easily removed from the stamps, Matthews investigated one way of solving the problem. He designed several versions of the stamp that had fine white lines running horizontally across the background of the stamp. Nine versions are shown, ranging from 15 lines to about 40. Royal Mail also tested different inks and phosphor, but ultimately decided to change the composition of the postmarking ink instead.

Several trials are shown for the Millennium Machin. At least some of these have been published before. All feature an enlarged and cropped Machin portrait. Some are cropped just above the lowest part of the necklace, and just a bit of the back of the tiara is cut off. Others have an even larger portrait that is cut off just below the chin and behind the ear.

Some trials from 1996 show a comparison between traditional acid-etched photogravure cylinders and computer etched cylinders. There are some Machins with colors similar to those in use at the time, some with a grey head surrounded by the usual colored background, and one featuring a dark gray head on a white background with a thin, black frame. The ones with the white background have the value 00p, the others all have 1st or 2nd indicators.

Just based on the illustrations in the magazine, there is very little difference in the results of the two printing methods. The actual trials may show more.

Finally, the strangest group of the bunch. These were a concept for the Millennium issue printed by De La Rue, but no credit given to the designer. Imagine an imperforate horizontal strip of NVI Machins. Now perforate the strip so that the vertical perforations slice through the portrait(!), then center the service indicator between the two sections of the portrait. 

The result is a stamp having the back portion of the Queen's head on the left, the service indicator in the middle, and the front portion of the Queen's head on the left. Two different placements of the vertical perforation are shown.

I'm not surprised that the designer's name is not known. (Trust me, this is not something that Jeffery Matthews would have done.)

--Larry

Note: The web site says The Postal Museum will open in July.  

Note: The stamp pictured above is from the 1997 coil, not the 1993 booklet. It's the one that I had at hand. Don't flame me.

Unusual Find

I am currently in the UK on holiday and was surprised to see a bit of sun over the weekend just gone , apparently it was on par at 20 degrees here in Birmingham with the Costa Blanca. Home from home you might say.

I have a couple of special items that I want to place in a Machin auction sale in September and had a few hours to kill today so I went on a trawl through a couple of the top London auction houses. My idea was just to see what kind of stuff has passed through them lately and what sort of money were the lots fetching.

Whilst on my travels I started to wish I had visited earlier with some spare cash. Of several unusual lots this is just one item that caught my eye. Its a small block of the £1.00 recess printed high value.

This lot intrigued me mainly because I wrote about this same stamp just a few weeks ago. Also a reprint of its earlier sibling is due to be re issued in the form of gold foil stamp commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Machin in June this year.

Back to my auction find (below)

This block of four as you can see has a mishmash of perforation errors, What I like about it, I was shocked at the price on the final hammer. It was somewhere just over the £200 mark, included in the lot was a imperforated block of four and a normal block for comparison.

It makes my mouth water just thinking about it, if only I was the owner of it. Or if I had been an earlier bird on site I could now be just that.

Just to finish off today, here is a mock up of a Bradbury first day cover showing the £1.00 gold foil stamp (enlarged at the top of the page) and illustrations of the first high values ( very nice).

His web site also shows illustrations of the Miniature sheets and some of the Machin Prestige Booklet panes due out in June.