Leonardo da Vinci Prestige Pane

Having Heard the news that the Machins from the Leonardo da Vinci prestige booklet which will be issued in February this year would be coded M18L I was a little disappointed. I recalled that the 5p value had already been issued on the prestige RAF pane in February of last year, so it would not be a new stamp.

I then remembered something That Ian Billings wrote on the Norvic Blog. Below I have coppied the text from his blog and re produced his image of the RAF 5p.


The missing or hidden P can be seen in the image above

" Oddly the 'P' in the MPIL is very difficult to see, under the phosphor, leading some to suggest that it is not there. He later  updated his post and informed readers that something was amiss".

Ian updated his post with this report.     

 " Stanley Gibbons catalogue editors have decided that the P is actually missing, so have given these a separate sub-number not because of the year, but because of the missing P. 

He informs us that "the 2p is U3071d, the 5p is U3072f, and the £1.17 is U3084a.  This means that even collectors who don't distinguish by year code, will want these stamps because they have a separate catalogue listing"

We keep saying it collecting Machins can be complex, but if you are a Machin buff like most who read these pages,  never boring.  Ian has uploaded the image of the da Vinci Machin pane. You can view  it here

Many thanks  Ian, this means that the 5p value together with the 10p and £1.55p values will after all be new a value although the 5p value was already issued with the 2018 coding. the missing P, or hidden P makes this so.

A big thank you to the viewers who have bid on my eBay items,.  Re the pre decimal 5d stamps with missing phosphors they all got sold, no one requested them via email, so they all went to auction.

Several bids have now been received on the punch booklet mentioned in my last post, which is still listed together with another and they both finish today.

If you missed the miscut 10p booklet with the neck flaw that I wrote about and listed some time ago, I can now inform you I have found another. This is now on offer on my eBay site as a buy it now item. This may be your last chance to get a copy of this miscut flaw, so if it takes your fancey...!