1st Class gets a deeper 'Royal Mail' red colour. Again.

I forgot to mention in my last article that as well as a new font on the booklet covers, there is a new colour for the 1st and 1st Large too. It's Royal Mail Red. I did think we'd had Royal Mail Red before. Maybe we did but, anyway, this is significantly darker than the red we've had to date recently and will be regarded as a new colour by pretty much all of the catalogues.

I'll list the new arrivals in a moment. First there are some more bits and pieces to deal with.

although not as obviously different, there are some deeper blue 2nd Class stamps. The 2nd Class with M16L MBIL and MTIL codes and the 2nd Large with M16L MBIL and MFIL codes.

The Royal Mail 1st Signed For stamp has the M16L date code, no security backing paper. The Special Delivery up to 100g stamp now also has M16L code and no security backing paper.

Recent sheet printings of the 1st and 1st large are in the old colour but the 1st Large does seem to be a deeper red than before and the 1st Class a pale red with a pale Queen's head too. Neither have security printed backing.

Now for the Royal Mail Red stamps. You can see how obviously different they are, and yet I failed to notice when they arrived individually

1st Large with M16L MBIL and MFIL codes

1st Class with M16L MBIL, MCIL, MSIL and MTIL codes.

New regional lines

All the 8s have now arrived and nice to see the real stamps. the £1.88 is in a lovely deep shade of blue and reminds me of the old 5d from long ago.

The 78p, 88p, £1.88 and 1st Signed For all have MA13 (although it took me a while to distinguish what was on the 88p which seemed quite indistinct or maybe I need new glasses).

I can detect no obvious code on the 1st Large Signed For.

What is new (to me, at any rate) is what looks like two types of coating on the regionals - thin vertical lines in  about the width of the phosphor bands and a cross-hatched band next to each. the cross-hatched area is narrower than the vertical lined area.

This came to my attention as I was about to write how the English had dancing 8s in 88 for some reason best known to someone but the Welsh, Irish and Scots just had side-by-side numerals. the Scots, however, have the luxury of silver numerals whereas the rest of us have white (or whatever colour the paper happens to be). The cross-hatching is clearly evident as a pattern on one of the Scots 8s at some angles. In the the photo above I have just managed to catch the different coatings on the left.