More 18 codes and some shades of difference

£1.25 M18L in dull green shade

1st red Walsall M18L MSIL

1st red Walsall M18L MCIL deep red

1st red Walsall M18L MAIL pale red

2nd bright blue Walsall M18L MBIL

1st red Walsall M18L MTIL

1st red Walsall M18L MBIL

1st Large red Walsall M18L MBIL

That's the last month's new discoveries. Nothing terribly exciting really and my album pages are now bulging with so many 1st reds! It is actually quite difficult to recognise the differences at first with 'pale' and 'deep' having rather too indistinguishable meanings now for my liking!

As with many others in this series, I am going along with these less obvious 'different' stamps on the basis that it can't be many years before it ends and, having lasted so long now, I simply have to carry on! Indeed, I am now beginning to wonder whether I myself will survive to the end! Now that would be annoying - so I shall have to make a special effort and lose some weight and take some exercise perhaps.

Admirable as it is in many ways, I have to report that the September 2018 issue of Philatelic Bulletin is totally devoid of anything Machin, unless you count a mention in the content of the First World War 1918 booklet issues coming up in the New Issues panel on the back page. I think this issue takes the award for Least Machin Content, previously held, I believe by an issue which had none other than a photograph of an envelope bearing a 1st red in an advertisement.

Not known at this address...

For many years I have thought that there should be an on-line edition of the Philatelic Bulletin. I also hoped that someone at the Bureau might also publish all the old issues. It wouldn't be a massively difficult task with today's scanning devices and there are even free search facilities that can be added to sites.

I remember seeing index pages around January or February too each year. They'd be useful on-line as well.

So I was delighted to see the reply to Mr Holbrook's query in the December 2016 Bulletin.

I did think that www.bpb.london/0594 was a slightly unusual address but, at least, it was nice and short and, if you knew the year and month of an article, you could find the issue it appeared in. I know that .london is a comparatively new domain suffix and guessed that bpb dot anything more familiar must have already have been taken. Nevertheless it struck me as a little odd but I hastily typed it in to my address bar anyway.

Nothing.

I tried the same address without the /0594 bit. I wasn't allowed to see that. I tried all sorts of variations but without any success. So I am not too sure how Mr Holbrook will be able to 'enjoy the read'.

I also made another trip to the Royal Mail website, thinking that there may be some news there. Typing 'Bulletin' in the search facility brought up nothing even vaguely of interest to stamp collectors. Scanning the many places we can visit in the 'Shop' I found nothing like Archives or even Bulletin so I gave up and decided to write this grumpy old man's article.

As collectors we make massive efforts to arrange our stamps, booklets, panes, covers etc., keep them neatly in albums, boxes or whatever and, whilst we may spend a little while looking for a particular issue we can share our past acquisitions with enthusiasm and ease. Nothing like as much effort would be needed to archive and make available the British Philatelic Bulletin's content over the years. Those responsible for these things at Royal Mail really do need to show some enthusiasm too and make some effort. I am sure it will be much appreciated across the customer base and by researchers generally.

There ought to be a budget for this. It need not cost a fortune and, if staff are already well-occupied with sales, then I have a suspicion that some collectors would consider lending a hand for little or no recompense to get the job done. So many wonderful illustrations, snippets of detail and, of course, expert articles and lists.

So, come along Royal Mail. It is time to bring The Philatelic Bulletin on-line and let us search its archives on-line too. Or to publish a url that works?

British Stamps - vote for your favourite in 2015

A remarkable 153 stamps were released in 2015 and The philatelic Bulletin would like to find out which we preferred. Each issue is illustrated here and you can vote either by filling in a copy of the form that appears on the 3rd page or just putting your preferences in an email to bpb. readerspoll@rocketmail.com. The prize is a 2015 Royal Mail Year Book.

I suspect that Star Wars will sweep the board for sets. The individual winner is less certain. My vote is for the #59 First World War commemorative stamp. Amongst the sets, I will vote for the Machins, of course, but actually think the Bridges and Christmas issues were very well designed. Individually, the #35 Humber Bridge may do well.

I rather think that one of the Smilers, #11 especially, may come bottom of the poll, with the £1.47 Inventive Britain not exactly likely to garner many votes either.

Nice handwriting

I think this is the fourth 'used' Post And Go that I have received. I say 'used' although the postmark appears to have been applied to the other side! Some delightful handwriting demonstrated how much more pleasant it is to receive cards that look like someone cares. The days of printed address labels have been around for many years now and the difference is quite remarkable. They may well be more efficient but I am not at all sure they contribute to conveying the intended message as well.

I remember using MailMerge in Word and Excel back in the 1990s and being pretty pleased with myself at the time. I did make an effort, though, to make the labels also a bit more fun with pictures of Santa or reindeer. Now I write them all. It takes a bit longer but I know which I prefer to receive.

So, on the other side, here's the cheery card from our friends in Edinburgh for 2015. I did at first wonder whether there was some game I was supposed to play by stroking the snowman's tummy but realised fairly quickly that that's the postmark message!

Incidentally, what are the dark marks on either side perforations? They're not postmarks - looking at my original image they seem to be part of the print as if the adjoining label pattern had slightly shifted. Except that it wouldn't have shifted left and right and there wouldn't be anything to the left or right anyway. Intriguing. Any ideas?

Zero in August

I swear someone at the Philatelic Bureau read my post last month about the lack of Machins in the magazine. There had been just one pane from a booklet. This month - the August issue - has NO MACHINS AT ALL!!

Yes, I am shouting. NO MACHINS AT ALL. Not even any in a box of assorted stamps that some kid is looking at. Or in an advert somewhere or on an envelope that someone happens to have been holding when a photograph of something else was taken.

This is bizarre.

So here is a nice 50p ultramarine I had hanging around, just to make some kind of point.

No 12 across or definitives in the Philatelic Bulletin

This looks like a new font for the two 2nd Class Post And Gos, which I'll call IVA for now as it is pretty similar to the type IV with the bold smaller text for the code being the most noticeable. It is interesting to note how the text is getting ever smaller and the old style type 1 looks terribly out of place now. Odd that these are on an old backing but I am advised that these come from 'Enquiry Office' machines which had an office name line before but that's now removed. Not that I'm much the wiser.

From the same source, here is an error where the print has overlapped the edge but not, apparently gone on the backing paper or maybe it just rubbed off the shiny surface there.

Another '15' date code, this time for the 2nd Large stamp by Walsall and bearing MA15. Quite why they insist on that structure when everyone does M15L on other issues is odd but I shall not worry about that too much.

What is, perhaps, more worrying is the lack of any Machins in the July 2015 edition of the Philatelic Bulletin. Apart from two booklet illustrations where a block of four 1st Class Machins are shown with two Special issues in the familiar booklet format, and they're only shown as illustrations of the special issues, there are not even any illustrations of Machins. That, I think, is a first. The issue is almost entirely taken up with war items which, whilst appreciating their importance at this time, I do feel is being slightly overdone now as we will no doubt soon be getting previews of the November Remembrance stamps as well.

As well as no Machins, there were also no Post And Gos incidentally. Not a good issue for definitive fans.

The crossword also lacked a clue for 12 across. I don't usually do the competitions but this week, for some reason I cannot really figure, I completed both the stamp identification and worked out the answer to what was being spelled out by various squares in the crossword solution. The missing word was C_A_G_ which could have been CRAGGY or CLANGS but I decided it was more likely to be CHARGE or CHANGE and opted for the former, adding my own clue 'None for entry' designed to match the fact that there was no clue to there being no charge for entry to the competition. It was a bit forced but did produce a response from a nice lady at the Bulletin to complement me on completing it. Apparently the clue should have related to a solution CHANGE so I had guessed the wrong one but still feel a little hopeful that my first entry in probably 40 years may get me something. More news on that later. Prizes really are very modest.

Quaint old chart in the Bulletin this month

I had to smile at the British Philatelic Bulletin this month, with its quaint chart illustrating an article about scientists in UK stamps. That must have been made with an extremely old version of Microsoft Excel! Now, there is nothing wrong with that - I still use Excel 97 myself when I have to use the official Office product - but the colours and style are just so, so old-fashioned! They are so quaint that they're almost cute.

I made the one below in about five minutes using Google's free Sheets on-line. perhaps someone might gently suggest to the Editor or the author that they might try a little harder to keep up with the times.