Another space needed just to the left of the 20½p blue.

Not the most exciting of months but, mercifully, a rather cheaper one than most! The new arrivals are simply two Walsall items with 15 codes that are now on security backing paper, two Walsall 16 codes on security backing paper and two new 16 codes from DLR on normal backing.

1st red Walsall M15L MBIL with security backing

1st red Walsall M16L MBIL with security backing

1p maroon DLR M16L normal backing

20p green DLR M16L normal backing

2nd Large brt blue Walsall  M16L MBIL with security backing

1st  Large red Walsall M15L MBIL with security backing

1st large Walsall M16L MFIL with security backing

I imagine that the security backing will become a standard affair before long and there will be quite a few new entrants once the counter sheet stamps start to emerge and more booklets too. So this year may well see several examples of the same stamp with and without the backing text but, hopefully, next year will settle down and each will remain peacefully one or the other.

I had precisely one Post and Go Machin - a 2nd Class Small Parcel £2.85 denomination which looks attractive on the package but still doesn't make me regret not seeking to collect all these as mint. I do believe that a used collection of these items is worth following, though, as, unless I am extremely odd and others are getting piles of these every day, they will be comparatively scarce in years to come and an interesting observation of stamp life in the 20 teens or whatever this decade will be called.

On the subject of being odd, I must apologise to readers who wondered what I might have been drinking before writing recently about celebrating the Machin 50th. That will, of course, be in June 2017 and not next month as I had indicated!

I also write on the subject of Corgi Toys. Now they do have an important anniversary in July this year, marking 60 years since their first Corgi Toy models appeared. An Austin Cambridge, Morris Cowley, Vauxhall Velox, Rover 90, Riley Pathfinder, Hillman Husky, Austin Healey, Triumph TR2 and some commercial or utility vehicles came onto shop shelves in July 1956. Unfortunately, Corgi appear not to be doing a great deal to mark the occasion at all. I have seen a strange Milk Float to be released as a special item but that is it.

Actually, bearing in mind the huge publicity given to several companies recently in stamp issues, one marking the occasion might have been a nice idea, had I thought of it earlier.

Anyway, apart from you now needing to extend your 1st red pages even further and having to try and squeeze yet another 20p green on the page - just in front of the 20½p - it remains a fairly gentle time in the Machin world.

Re distribution!

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!

The Machin Post and Gos are also now coming with the new font, making another six to acquire if you are collecting each denomination.

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.

Birds III Worldwide 40g (scarce)

1st Robin with different font spacing and alignment?

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:

1p maroon 2B

2p dark green 2B

5p ash pink 2B

10p light tan 2B

20p light green 2B

50p slate grey 2B

£1 wood brown 2B

DLR NVIs

1st Large red 2B

1st red 2B

Enschede NVI

Enschede

1st red 2B code R and 12

Walsall

1st red 2B code C and 12

1st red 2B code T and 12

1st red 2B code S and 12

1st Large red 2B code F and 12

1st Large red 2B code B and 12 with short bands at bottom

1st red 2B code B and 12

Specialist items

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!

DLR 87p orange 2B code 12 with short phosphor bands at the bottom

This is from a 30/3/13 printing and scarce.

Wal 1st red 2B code 12+C with short iridescent overprint at top

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:

England 1st lion 2B with a grey head, not silver, printed by Cartor

Wales 2nd leek CB by Cartor

Coil strips

Enschede 1st red 2B + inkjet number

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!

3 January 2013: New colours and England, Wales regional changes

An early start for new definitives in 2013! In fact, I think this is the earliest ever issue in a year and bearing in mind that Royal Mail's Tallents House staff will have had a Bank Holiday on 2 January I bet they were jolly pleased to have this lot to deal with on their return!

We have a smart colour for the 1st Class NVIs and you might be forgiven for thinking at first glance that the printers have used up their stock of diamond blue ink for the new 50p but I am assured that it is slate grey. The £1 also gets a new colour, imaginatively called wood brown. Then there are a further five items Machin collectors will need as the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p and 20p self-adhesives now have different slit security features and a 12 code included in the overprint. These are De La Rue items. Of course, there are also three Walsall booklets too for the usual 12 x 1st Class, 6 x 1st Class and 4 x 1st Large stamps and you'll need the London Underground booklet which emerged just a few days later on 9 January! That contains 4 x 1st Class plus two from the London Underground set. As if that wasn't enough to start off the year, England and Wales had a change of printer for their 1st and 2nd self adhesive pictorials on 3 January. The British Philatelic Bulletin's November issue promised a listing of all the new issues for 2012 but I have yet to see it. Despite having three pages devoted to Post and Go (which really does seem to be being pushed quite heavily) in the January issue I can find no mention of the regional issues at all so I cannot yet confirm more details and will have to look elsewhere for any differences.

I am also grateful to the 'Machin Nut' for the following information regarding codes found in the 1st and 1st Large red self-adhesives.

1st red self-adhesive with '12' code, code T 1st red self-adhesive with '12' code, code B 1st red self-adhesive with '12' code, code C 1st red self-adhesive with '12' code, code S 1st red self-adhesive with '12' code, code R 1st large red self-adhesive with '12' code 1st large red self-adhesive with '12' code, code B 1st large red self-adhesive with '12' code, code F