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Thursday 11 February 2010

Have De La Rue Mended The Errors Of Their Ways?

When directed by Royal Mail to change the printing process and the subsequent change over to the ATN press (computerised Gravure) we all thought that modern Machin printing errors would dry up in the philatelic market place. Well this has proved to be very true to an extent, not a lot seems escape these days. But can they say "job done", not quite!!


The missing £ sign on the £2.00 Machin value caused a stir and the story is well documented, but have you heard or seen reports of the £5 Ochre-Brown printing in the unissued iriodin ink colour?

This block of 6 was put up for sale at David Feldman (Philatelist auctioneers) in a All World Auction during 2008. I do not know if the block sold.

Imperforate Machins still seem to appear on a regular basis. Several Machin values have been found impeforate over the last few years, these consisted of multiples in blocks (now split into smaller blocks and pairs). The 20p Bright Green Machin was one value of which is still readily available from dealers at a modest price.

Other De La Rue imperforate Machin values of 35p Sepia, 39p Grey, 40p Turquoise-Blue, and 43p Emerald have been offered for sale by specialist dealers.

5 comments:

Ian - Norvic said...

Roy,

I think it's erroneous (of you or of the auctioneer) to describe the £5 brown as an error.

The previous £5 was brown and RM wanted the replacement to be brown, but that really doesn't work as we can see in your picture. So these - like the 00 values and other so-called 'errors' - are more than likely escapees, or stolen printer's waste/archive material, which is why Royal Mail warned us that they were seeking to recover them and that they should not be on the market.
[Not that I know of anybody who has been approached by RM Security trying to get them back!]

Machin Man said...

Ian,

My piece was meant to be light hearted, I also agree with you, this block should not have been on the market and the auctioneer (or myself)should not really class it as an error.

As for printers waste,or proofs ( I wont call it stolen material as this has not been established in a Court of law). ESCAPEES IS A GOOD WORD , there must be tons of the stuff in private hands (not just Machins)

Specialist catalogues list Wildings, special issues and many stamps from previous Reigns, which came via the bin.

Anonymous said...

"The missing £1 sign on the £2.00 Machin value caused a stir and the story is well"

Why would a £2 stamp have a £1 sign on it ?

Machin Man said...

Well spotted, this has now been amended to £ sign.

Machin Man said...

Douglas Myall reminded me of his story of this stamp. It makes excellent reading


It was told in Deegam Report 74 in November 2007. Royal Mail tried to recover any offered for sale. Is not known if they succeeded in their quest.