I have sung the praises of B Alan Ltd. before and it was a pleasure to re-enrol on their distribution service. They talk about Machins in my language - losing me sometimes on some delicate detail about some printing but for the most part explaining where new items come from and most I would have missed. I am also pleased to have the account number H111 which is particularly appropriate!
The first distribution arrived a little while ago and, as well as duplicating Royal Mail's standard bits and pieces had some interesting additions.
First up is the Christmas 1st class that is issued to staff as a 'thank you' for their extra work over the period. This year some will have received sheets with the matrix still present and without rouletting on the reverse. Not Machin, I know, but I am coming to the view that the small Christmas issues are definitive and will be adding them to my catalogue as B Alan have done.
They make a distinction between Post and Gos and Post and Gos with overprints, making the reasonable point that the overprints effectively turn these into 'commemoratives'. I am happy to go along with that and may well stop bothering with even the declared low number of overprints to be authorised. Another change to my catalogue in a category I'd only just created!
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| The Machin Post and Gos are also now coming with the new font, making another six to acquire if you are collecting each denomination. |
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The Christmas issue, using the Robin is from an earlier Birds issue but reprinted so it is a separate collectable item for Post and Gos, in particular as it has the new type 3a font with the left alignment and stronger face. This has the BPMA overprint. I need one without that.
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| Birds III Worldwide 40g (scarce) |
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| 1st Robin with different font spacing and alignment? |
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| Robin with blank denomination |
There have also been found some Birds 1 Post and Gos with the Worldwide 40g denomination - offices believed to have had an old roll left over when by all rights they should have been used up well before the new rate was introduced! These are very scarce and, at £215 for the set of six designs, not a cheap item.
For Machin proper definitives there is, of course, the following - look for the different codes if you'd thought several were all the same!
DLR with date code 12:
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| 1p maroon 2B |
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| 2p dark green 2B |
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| 5p ash pink 2B |
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| 10p light tan 2B |
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20p light green 2B
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| 50p slate grey 2B |
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| £1 wood brown 2B |
DLR NVIs
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| 1st Large red 2B |
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| 1st red 2B |
Enschede NVI
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Enschede
1st red 2B code R and 12
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Walsall
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| 1st red 2B code C and 12 |
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| 1st red 2B code T and 12 |
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| 1st red 2B code S and 12 |
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| 1st Large red 2B code F and 12 |
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| 1st Large red 2B code B and 12 with short bands at bottom |
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| 1st red 2B code B and 12 |
Specialist items
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| A 19p Harrison in deep yellowish-olive CB has been found in strips of 5 from a coil. That means an extra space being required in 1993 issues! |
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DLR 87p orange 2B code 12 with short phosphor bands at the bottom
This is from a 30/3/13 printing and scarce.
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| Wal 1st red 2B code 12+C with short iridescent overprint at top |
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| Wal 1st red 2B code 12+C with inset right phosphor band |
Regional
Lastly, like me, they include the pictorial regionals as definitives and we have:
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| England 1st lion 2B with a grey head, not silver, printed by Cartor |
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| Wales 2nd leek CB by Cartor |
Coil strips
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| Enschede 1st red 2B + inkjet number |
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| coil strip of the Harrison 19p deep yellowish olive |
Quite a lot to sort through and, by now, there should be variations of many appearing with date code 13! Just in case you had thought of settling down for a while!
