This year, Great Britain marks the 40th anniversary of its Machin stamps, a perfect time to discuss how you could set up a collection of these stamps. And that won’t be easy if you haven’t started yet. A standard collection of all the different values and colours come to over 400 stamps! But this article is an attempt to show that you can put together a nice collection which will be a tad more interesting than just all the values from 0.5p to £5 in a row, yet without needing anything more than a magnifier. This will be done by subdividing the set into easily manageable and distinguishable groups, giving a good picture of 40 years of Machins!
The story starts in 1967. On the June 6 of that year, the first Machin stamps are issued. The stamps replace the no longer popular Wilding stamps, which were considered cluttered and dated.
The new design is a picture of simplicity, with just the portrait of Queen Elizabeth
and the value.
The first group of stamps are the pre-decimal stamps, printed in photogravure. At the introduction of the Machin stamps, Great Britain had not yet switched to decimalisation. The stamps are easy to distinguish, because the penny values are indicated with a d
and the shilling values with a little "forward slash".
and the shilling values with a little "forward slash".
It is a relatively small group, which has its merits because you can collect stamps in sheets,
coils
and booklets.
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.The stamp with a more stylized pound sign belongs to the decimal group.
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.Again, the four higher values are printed in intaglio, and this is the group in which you include the modern £1 stamp.
From 1977, a new type of high value stamp is introduced, printed in photogravure, and therefore more like the low value stamps, only in a larger format.
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)
Royal Mail decides to clean up the series. Two developments play a major role here.
The first dates from 1983 and entails the introduction of a new letter type. The bulky letter type used turned out to be problematic for large values like 19½p.
The first dates from 1983 and entails the introduction of a new letter type. The bulky letter type used turned out to be problematic for large values like 19½p.
Stamp designer Jeffery Matthews was taken on board to design a new and more compact letter type. This new letter type is introduced in 1983 and is still used today.
Most figures are easily recognizable, but in case of doubt, look at the recent stamps with elliptical perforations: these all have the Jeffery Matthews letter type.
The second development was to stop using all those different sub types and to create a standard stamp: a light head on a dark background, just as Arnold Machin had wanted it to be.
The second development was to stop using all those different sub types and to create a standard stamp: a light head on a dark background, just as Arnold Machin had wanted it to be.
Again, Jeffery Matthews was involved. In 1988, he created a colour palette of 30 colours.
In 1999, three colours are added,
In 1999, three colours are added,
and now, to mark the series’ ruby jubilee, Jeffery Matthews created a ruby colour for the £1 stamp.
The colour palette is still in use today, so again: if in doubt, check out the stamps with elliptical perforation and find the 34 colours. Note: the stamps in black (1st),
gold (26p and 1st) and light blue (2nd) do not come from the palette, so discard those!
gold (26p and 1st) and light blue (2nd) do not come from the palette, so discard those!
From 1993, things will get interesting if you’re planning to start a collection of Dutch Machins, because in that year, Enschedé obtains the contract to print the stamps, and will continue to do so until 1997. Enschedé are the printers that introduce the elliptical perforations. The Enschedé Machin head is very refined and easy to recognize once you know what to look for. Check out the following values, which have been printed by Enschedé only: 29p grey, 36p blue and 38p red.
In 1997, the contract returns to Harrison, who introduce a “new head”. This is not really a new head, but it is now computer engraved which makes it sharper and more detailed. It is the head which is still used today, even though the stamps are now printed by De La Rue. Stamps such as the 40p azure and 42p green have only been issued with this “new head”, and are therefore a good benchmark.
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. The Machin head also graces definitive stamps from Gibraltar
and Hong Kong. The Hong Kong set is especially interesting, because the stamps are available in sheets, 
miniature sheets, 
booklets and coils. 
but by that time, you will have been hooked and will be eager to read, research and collect even more! And once you’ve reached that stage, you’ll be extremely busy for the rest of your life!
© 2007, AKPhilately
An edited, Dutch version of this article was published in Filatelie of July/August 2007.
A problem arose in that Elizabeth was far too busy to pose again, so the original photos had to be retouched. This proved rather hard to do, but in the end it proved possible to fiddle slightly with the frontal cross (remember?!), by making it stand more upright, thereby optically deluding the human mind into thinking the whole diadem was more upright. Everybody pleased.
Here, you have the two crosses side by side, for comparison.
Oh alright then, did you know there are two types of the 2.5d? No? Well, they're quite easy to distinguish. The ones in this pane are type II, and what you do to find out is look at the frontal cross of the diadem.
Now take a look at that same cross from type I.
As you can see, the top line on the cross only goes halfway on type I and goes all the way on type II.
The bird is common throughout Europe and even Northern Africa. Its breeding territory extends way out east into Russia, but in winter it is mainly found in West and South Europe. It's a lovely bird indeed, which I can usually see from my window here in Bonnie Scotland. Do you want those birds in your garden as well? Well, stop taking out those thistles, then you will not only have added a lovely plant to your garden but if there's any goldfinches in the area, they're sure to visit you as they love to forage on the seeding thistles!
:-)
I've never been, but it must be a wonderful cathedral to visit! So well done, Royal Mail, for once! Only next time do include Durham again, please!
As you can see, it was sent on 08-12-1949 (well, at least I suppose that is the date), from Stoke-on Trent, England to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Seeing that the addressee is a book publisher and the sender a colour manufacturer, the parcel may well have contained inks. A total franking of 6 shilling was applied.
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!
Now I'm quite partial to bird stamps, although I will admit that they can be a bit samey. But this is a very well executed set, I think. I like the colour scheme and I like the fact that they're all 1st class stamps, so they can actually be used on your post! Although I must admit I haven't seen any yet, but then, I suppose they were on sale in post offices for like a day or so. But, credit where credit due, they've come up trumps!
All we need now is a proper year of issue on each and every stamp, and were there! Or is that just me being chronologically deranged?
Which set me off thinking about blocks of stamps, part sheets, etc. I quite like them and when you're mainly focussed on stamps (rather than covers), they can lighten up your collection/page/display no end. The good thing is that in that way, you can show more information about the stamps. These date blocks are obvious examples as they show you when the actual stamp was printed. Now does that mean that we have to go for every date block we can find? I once tried that with my Machins but there are so many that that is just not a financially sound prospect. I suppose one way to collect them is to get first and last printing date of a stamp and all the date blocks that have any significance on the stamp. Again on Machins (I've done those the most you see), you could eg try and get the first date block when fluor was changed from yellow to blue. In that way, the date blocks included in your collection basically tell the story of that stamp. Great!
Again, it tells you from what cylinder a specific stamp is printed. And again, you don't always have to go for all the blocks that exist. This D1 dot block tells you that there's also a "no dot block" and that therefore a double pane cylinder was used. A new cylinder/plate number does not always constitute a change (that is to say, if you don't over-specialize) but new changes (like the deeper engraved Machin head on the current stamps) do usually constitute a plate/cylinder number change. I must admit though, that after finding out that with the Dutch Beatrix plate numbers, different plates keep the same number, the point of collecting these has somewhat paled.
It doesn't tell you much, only that there are counting numbers on the side (although it is nice if you have an example from the other side of the sheet too, so you can illustrate that they run from 1 to 10 or 20 on the left and from 20 or 10 to 1 on the other! Perforation types are usually nicely illustrated on blocks too.
But that's basically just trying to impress! If you really want to do this properly, you have to have a positional block, that is to say, you can see where on the sheet the variety is. But with the marginal side imperf, I think it is pretty clear where this bit was situated on the sheet!
I know it doesn't show up on the scan but the sheet is larger than A4, so it's huge and there's no way of mounting it let alone keeping it safe somewhere. There's a perf through the middle so it would be possible to tear it in two but that would spoil it rather, wouldn't it?!
Caernarfon is the Welsh name, the English name is Carnarvon.
Cader Idris is the English name for the mountain, Welsh should be Cadair Idris. This, by the way, is the mountain we always used to climb when we still lived in Wales. It was less than an hour from us, quite a climb, but happy memories!...
Isn't she a beauty?!
But this morning, in full daylight, he was sitting on a fence post, just two yards from the house. And he stayed here for quite a while, looking for mice no doubt. Such a wonderful bird!
On these panes you will usually find nice se-tenant pairs and varieties of stamps that occur in no other format. That goes for this one too. Here is an image of the 2p sheet issue.
Now if you look closely you will see that the value has been redrawn for the prestige booklet. It is "much" thicker. My eyesight sometimes fails me when details like these are concerned but if you look carefully at the "p", you'll see the difference.
:-)
Here in Britain these dates were only introduced in the early 90s, I believe. 
They are very popular because you can find out precisely when certain stamps/varieties were printed. For example with the modern Machins (not the one shown here), there were printings on bright, intermediate and dull paper and as the difference was sometimes very hard to see (especially between bright and intermediate), you have to rely on date blocks to be sure what type it is. But then there are those that are printed on both types of paper on the same day. So that's where I dropped out.
Oh well, what's in a name! I don't think this RM policy will change much though, but the names add a bit of colour (pardon the pun) to a Machin collection.
And this is block B.
What's the difference between the two (no points for saying that they are two different stamps)?
In 1988, Jeffery Matthews compiled a colour palette of 30 colours. For a long time, these 30 were enough for the plentitude of new values issued year after year. But in 1999, Matthews was asked to add three colours to the palette. The final one has now finally been used for a stamp. The first of the three new colours appeared in 2000, being the 40p grey-blue.
It was not until 2005 that the second new colour was introduced: the 9p orange.
More on colours in the hopefully not too distant future!
These were first issued with the portrait of Queen Victoria (1887), and after her death with the portrait of her son, King Edward VII (1902).
There are shade varieties to collect and the Victoria stamp can be found in two dies with differences in the value tablets, but I have only the one copy so I can't show you the differences. Who knows, maybe later!
Although these stamps were never issued, the idea of large values was introduced on the booklet covers.
I believe (though I have not seen any confirmation of this) that those new stamps with the large value are a direct result from these trials, and as we're talking definitives here (i.e. stamps that will really be used, rather than just end up in our stamp albums), usefulness should be more important than aesthetics.