More 20 codes and some thin paper

 Here we have a few more 20 year codes and a couple of variations for the 1st Class red shade and its thinning backing paper.

M20L MTIL Much thinner backing paper

M20L MCIL Deeper red Queen's head from Sherlock book, also thin backing paper with very bright fluorescence

2p Dark Green with M20L MAIL

20p Bright green with M20L MAIL

M20L MBIL very bright fluor with a yellow tint

1st Class Post And Gos in blue bring some cheer to a boring month

At last, some fun amongst the Post And Gos. I was too late to stop some more annoying overprints coming through the system but those shown here ought to be the last (and are all available for sale). The fun is the quite remarkable printing of the normal 1st Class etc values on blue backing which should be reserved for 2nd Class and 2nd Large. It's easy to see how this arose - someone putting the wrong roll in whatever section of a machine handles the 2nd Class issue - and I am surprised it hasn't happened more often. It is a lovely strip to have, though, and whilst I can see it being repeated it should remain quite a valuable error.

The other strips shown above are a Machin strip with MA13 and the new font and a strange pictorial overprint as well as text for the BPMA Inland Airmail 1934. Heavens that's just an 80th anniversary and of something quite obscure too.

The second class Machins are the first with MA14 date but also the IIA font. More noticeable, though, is a remarkable shift of phosphor up or down the stamps so that there is a massive break bang in the middle! This will have happened when the roll was printed and registration is miles out as the break would normally be positioned very carefully between the stamps. There are quite a few examples of short bands at top or bottom where the registration for phosphor printing has gone a little bit awry but this is really impressive. I don't normally collect phosphor or overprint errors but it seems that these are the first examples of MA14 and that's why I got them. In theory, they could be the 'normal' ones if properly registered stamps don't come along. I doubt that'll be the case, though, so it's nice to have these. The others are the first 2nd Class to have overprints as the obscure 80th gets on to these too. Odd in many ways.

A couple of pictorials with overprints also sneaked through to give my dealer plenty of income for his Christmas shopping. These are pretty but pretty tedious NMRN extensions for Remembrance and Trafalgar Day. I like the idea of using the Poppy label for remembrance at this time but I don't feel it is right to be associated just with The NMRN. few people will know what The NMRN is anyway, I'm afraid. I will have to look it up to get it right and can only recall RN being Royal Navy.

So there endeth the Lesson for Post And Go overprints and pictorials.

Not a great deal more this month: a stamp with a numeric value appears after a long time - the 2p with M14L from De La Rue, a pale red 1st from Walsall business sheets M14L MBIL, a bright red 1st Large from Walsall MA13 MFIL and a 2nd bright blue with an almost illegible M11L MTIL recently discovered.

Prestige confusion and more Spring flowers than you may think

After all the effort I made to try and figure out who International Security Printers were it seems that the Loco prestige booklet was printed by Enschedé. Now, they may also be part of the magic ISP group but until I know more please accept my apologies for any rubbing out you now have to do in your records. So these are all new - four Regional pictorials and the 2p and 5p. You'll recall that the 5p Enschedé in the Merchant Navy book had ellipses near the top. And the last 2p was Cartor.

Another new find - no not a dark blue or black 2nd, that's just my scanner misbehaving and I'll replace the picture when I next use it - is a 2nd blue code M12L MRIL from Walsall. This came only in the coil issues used by big firms. Rare mint but you may encounter some used copies in used mail. 

A new set of Post And Gos is here. Using the same quite bland style of image but the subject matter does cheer in contrast, you need to look out for three different versions already! The first will be the usual strip sent out by the Philatelic Bureau, never to be seen again once installed in an album or box. They have font style 3 as before.

Then you need the nice new font style 4 shown above. These are from new Hytech machines - well, new software in old machines - and have a much more attractive and well-positioned text element.

Lastly, the usual Wincor mchine is printing them with font style 2, annoyingly still misaligned but at least easily identifiable!

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!