Firstly, my apologies for being conspicuous by my absence for nearly three years. Whilst the King's definitives are similar in design to Machins, I decided that it was time to stop when the Machin definitives would be gradually coming to a close.
I may have missed some late entries but it was quite a relief not to worry about what may or may not be worth reporting in a new issue. I am particularly relieved at not having to purchase the prestige books in order to maintain a complete collection when it has become abundantly clear that no-one uses the stamps in them for postage, nor probably has for a considerable number of years.
I suppose genuinely postally used copies could actually be rather rare, now I think about it. However, I remember how my old friend Mr Vincent used to bowl along to Kings Langley Post Office on the first day of an issue and someone he knew behind the counter would carefully apply the appropriate postmarks for him! So, rare prestige book used stamps may be but one has to question any value of note.
There has also been a massive reduction in the use of postage stamps other than 1st and 2nd Class definitives and I remember how neither of my local Post Offices were able to supply any stamps with a denomination when I was hoping to use duplicates in my collection and make up value for parcels. My other hobby, Corgi Toys, had become a serious business and I have been posting parcels every week. Initially I would buy stamps which I thought some recipients might appreciate. Then the Post Office started giving me Horizon labels and now I buy my postage online and print my own! It is so much more efficient and I can breeze into any Post Office and spend just a minute at the counter. I believe that I also pay a little less. So the only stamps I see now are on Christmas cards and a very occasional letter.
All in all, it was a good time to stop and everything is now bundled up in albums, stock book or envelopes bulging with duplicates of common issues. I now have to consider what to do with it all. I have collections of all sorts and, to complicate matters, inherited a number of stock books and albums from the Mr Vincent I mentioned above. I am quite happy to get rid of everything except my Machin collection, my early British stamps and some interesting old British Commonwealth stamps. I am tempted to keep just a few of the particularly interesting and valuable stamps in each of these collections and let the rest go. This would not have much impact (other than how much I would get in a sale) on the latter two collections but I do worry somewhat about diminishing the 'completeness' of the Machin albums.
Arguing with myself here, one can hardly ever get a 'complete' collection because the very definition of complete varies from expert to expert and collector to collector. Indeed, my own AHI Machin Catalogue which I started to put together in the late 1990s was my attempt to come up with a 'complete' collection that ought to meet most collectors' requirements, concentrating on mostly visual variations that did not require specialist equipment other than a magnifying glass, perforation gauge and maybe a UV light. B Alan Ltd., however, supplied me with huge numbers of further variations for many years (when I could afford the monthly distribution costs quite easily) and so my own collection covers all sorts of minute differences in addition.
So I am inclined to let everything go other than the ½p left band, 31p purple from Scotland, a 17p from Northern Ireland and a few more that I really would find difficult to see go. I'll also keep some 1d blacks, my one and only 2d blue of the same vintage and a nice stamp from Newfoundland.
The question then arises as to how I sell it all. I am thinking about packing them all up and letting Warwick & Warwick tell me how much things are not worth. I am prepared for the worst - especially for things like the Urch Harris Silver Jubilee British Commonwealth Collection - all as supplied and carefully mounted in the albums they supplied at huge costs over several months but probably of little value now. Again, they were all just prints that made good money for the nations involved and have nothing more of generally accepted value than those collections of ceramic figures one can subscribe to on the back of Sunday Times magazines.
In the meantime I have taken photos of every page in every album and stock book and created a section of my personal website where links will take you to each album. In a way, this is all I need to retain for myself with regard to 99% of the collection. If anyone is interested in acquiring anything featured then do get in touch, or, indeed, should you have some bright ideas as to how I can reasonably profitably dispose of them. Click on the stamp to have a look.
