Yes, it's still flower power time, and why not, eh?! We're doing orchids today. Sander published his famous Reichenbachia book at the end of the 19th century. The book, and especially its botanic artwork, is still very famous today. In the 1980s, Guyana, that country which on its own takes up about a third of a whole world stamp catalogue, but who cares when they produce stuff like this, produced stamp sets which depicted this artwork. Later, most if not all values were reissued with overprinted values.
While usually steering clear of issues like these, my flower article did lead me there, and as a result I now have a few of the overprinted values. Couldn't go for the original issue, as I was looking for a certain value which I could only find overprinted. But hey, they're so gorgeous that it does not really matter. So here's a feast for your eyes:
and this is my favourite of the lot I have, by the Scot Walter Hood Fitch:
Beautiful aren't they?!:-)
Adrian
The higher values of the pre-decimal period are a separate group, because they are larger and printed in intaglio. There are only four values, but do take care that you include the right £1 stamp, the one with the elaborate pound sign.
On 15 February 1971, Britain goes decimal, resulting in a whole lot of new stamps. From now on, the pence values are indicated with a p.
The first group of decimal stamps runs to 1983 and includes a great deal of values, as this was a period of rampant inflation.
Seeing that so many new values are added and various types of stamps are being used (light head on gradated background, dark head on light background and light head on dark background)
A final major development is the reintroduction of the high values. In the 1980s, the 1977 set was replaced by stamps in a different design, but in 1999, high values revert to the Machin design. The stamps are still recess-printed (engraved by Czeslaw Slania) but are now issued in small format. In 2003, the high values were printed in gravure (with shiny Iriodin ink), but nowadays they are only available via Royal Mail’s philatelic bureau.
Is that it? No way, there is so much more! For starters, we have the Machin stamps from the regions: the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. 
And once we’ve done the regions, we can go abroad, to Somaliland for example, where Machin stamps were overprinted for use there. When in 1990s Somaliland’s postal arrangements were put in place, the idea was to use British stamps with an overprint. This idea was abandoned however, for fear of Islamic lack of understanding. Therefore, new stamps were designed and printed by Harrison. These new stamps were not finished on time. An urgent need for stamps meant that the overprinted Machin stamps, which had already been printed, had to be used after all. They were withdrawn after a couple of days, after it emerged that reactions to them were indeed rather negative. Postally used stamps are now very scarce. 
and Hong Kong. The Hong Kong set is especially interesting, because the stamps are available in sheets, 
miniature sheets, 
booklets and coils. 
but the one I really like is from the Venda set of waterfowl. The 30c depicts the Egyptian goose. 
Lovely stamp, I like the colours and simple design. And it's a lovely bird and the great thing is, you don't have to travel as far away (seen from where I am) as Africa, for the species was introduced in Europe in the 18th century and can be seen in parkland with rivers, ponds, lakes and marshes!
We're talking 1940s here and as you can see a very traditional design. No sign of any urge to innovate. But why on earth did the designer place the portrait in the top left corner???? It looks so wrong and out of place, staring off the stamp like that. This one here (1930s I believe) 
is better but even here you could argue that the king is staring off the envelope. After all, the tradition (or even stipulation) that stamps have to be placed in the top right corner of the envelope had been in vogue for a long while. I believe that postal authorities started hammering on that way back in the 1800s. So basically, this one here (1935)
is how it should be. Note how well balanced the design looks compared to the others. And if you think things like that don't matter when the portrait is the central part of a definitive, you can think again, for look at this:
I immediately think there's something not right here, whereas with this version
I only think: perfect!
Any tips? Personally, I find a black background always rather tiring to the eyes in the long run and you should try and invest in a scanner to get better images. Any basic scanner will do, mine is the cheapest in the range!
I think the design is stunning (if slightly patriotic!) and most stamps are of a nice, light pastel colour. Very stylish!
and the top three values show HMS Merlin, on which the British came with their supplies to fight the battle. 
This latter design in particular I find an absolute beauty. 
It's an absolute favourite of mine, even though I haven't really started collecting or studying them. I just pick up copies whenever I come across them, for future study.
The design has been around since 1898, and even though I don't think it's part of any current definitive set (I could be wrong though!), for a long time, at least one value of a definitive set used to have this design. The design has also been incorporated in various commemorative issues. And of course there's lots of varieties to collect; different sizes, design changes, watermark changes, overprints, etc. 
Looks like you could be busy for a long time trying to build up a nice collection! But today I'm just showing you the stamps so you can enjoy the design!
:-)
(yes, beautiful, isn't it?!)
This bush-baby is part of the first definitive set for the Republic of Kenya, issued in 1966. The design was by Rena Fenessy and the stamps are printed in photogravure by Harrison. Here's some more Kenyan beasties.
The stamp depicts a "View on Brunei River". Brunei River is well known for its Kampong Ayer or Water Village, with all houses built in stilts in the water. Apparently there are over 4200 buildings and the village has existed for over 1300 years. During its history it has always been an important trade centre. So there!
Many of the definitives issued in the Georgian reign were the same for many colonies. As most stamps were printed by De La Rue, they devised so-called key plates (to be precise, they did that in the Victorian age). These are printing plates of the design of the stamp without country name and value. These plates could therefore be used for all colonies and all values. Much cheaper than having to make complete plates for all different stamps. It did mean however that for every stamp, two plates were needed. The second plate, the duty plate, was made up of the country name and the value. Registration of the two plates was vital, and as you can see from the image below, the country name had a tendency to float a little.
This Ceylon set is out of the ordinary in that some values were (also) printed with single printing plates. These can be identified because they have a large C of cent. See the 5c below.
Such a humble stamp, so many things to look out for!
The stamps of his reign are, however, mostly based upon one portrait, with eg Canada being a nice exception.
I was going to tell you about key plates and duty plates, but when I checked my information I found no confirmation that the Edward VII stamps were printed with such plates. There are Victorian key plates (preceding Edward, for those who did not read history) and Georgian key plates (following Edward) but no mention whatsoever of Edwardian key plates. So maybe there aren't any? Does anybody know?
Anyhow, this means that I will leave you in suspense for a little longer, until I have some material to show regarding this printing method!
And this is stamp B.
No, I didn't think you could! Neither could I before last night. But that is the great thing when you go beyond your standard world catalogues: a whole new world opens up before your eyes!
Apart from two pictorial stamps, the remainder of the set meant just to show his heir, his spare and his eldest grandchild. A family portrait if you like. And in the beginning all went well. The Prince of Wales, George's heir, became King Edward VIII in 1936, after George died.
But Edward was in love with a twice-divorced American, Wallis Simpson. He eventually had to choose between her and the crown and chose her. So later in 1936 (the year of the three kings), he abdicated and his brother, the Duke of York, became King George VI.
He smoked too much and died rather prematurely, which meant that in 1952, a young Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth (either I or II, depending whether you're Scottish or not, but that may be a nice entry for some other day...
:-)
In order to keep the sets interesting, a total of seven different colour combinations were used. The top values of all sets were in black and purple.
Recess-printing is a time-consuming job, so in order to have production finished in time for the Jubilee, the sets were printed by three leading stamp printers of the time; Bradbury, De La Rue and Waterlow. Each printer made their own plates and that means that plate flaws can be contributed to a specific printer. The most famous variety of them all is the double flagstaff variety on the Bradbury printings. 
It can be found on almost all values of all sets. It is a quite spectacular flaw, but there's a whole army of smaller yet still interesting flaws to collect. Interested? Have a look at the websites mentioned on the left. You'll be busy for a long time, trying to find them all!
At first glance it doesn't look that extra-ordinary but here is the normal sheet stamp.
Exactly. And I can tell you that the $10 exists in ten colour combinations on ten different miniature sheets. Pfffff. And yes, I'll need to have them all. One down, nine to go!
From 1993 (I believe) onwards, a series of miniature sheets was issued by Hong Kong Post to commemorate various Hong Kong stamp issues. This was probably done as a run-up to Hong Kong reverting to mainland China in July 1997. At least ten different sheets exist, and eight of those contain Machin stamps. They are a colourful addition to a Machin collection and are especially interesting because they yield various se-tenant pairs. Note also that these sheets (and therefore the stamps) are printed in lithography (by Enschedé) whereas the sheet stamps are printed in photogravure (also by Enschedé).
Most values are also available in coils. Single stamps are easily recognisable because of their cut side perforations (the top and bottom ones are torn).
But it's nice to try and get them as a strip, with the coil number on the back of one of them. Again, these were printed by Enschedé.
Tomorrow I'll show you some more but for now I'll leave you with the mention that if you want to read much more about Machins, have a look at the Machin Mania blog (see list). It's a great blog with an enormous amount of information about this iconic stamp!