Stampex 20 February 2013

Spring Stampex 2013 was held between the 20-23 February at the Design Centre in Islington, London, NW10.

Royal Mail, once more, had a presence. They had two stands – a main stand allowing collectors to catch up on issues at the back of the hall and another at the front for the Hytech kiosks.

There were three Hytech kiosks - A3, A4 an A2 from left to right. In addition there was a stand alone colour printer for Smiler’s sheets.  As in the last three shows, kiosks B1 and B2 were reportedly round the back to fill dealers’ orders.

The initial menu has three columns. The first column refers to the services available for stamps on reel A, the middle column for reel B and the third column for Collector Strips. The fifth button down in the third column allows the purchase of Smiler Sheets. These are NOT printed by the Hytech but by a separate process. One pays for the service on these kiosks then a staff member takes your photograph on a special App on an i-pad which is then transmitted to the printer. The process takes about a minute to complete.

 

Receipts produced were in the same format as the previous Stampex shows. Each Collector’s strip received its own receipt. In addition, a card receipt was also produced for the purchase.

Two values – second class up to 100g and second class large up to 100g. Background print is in blue with one phosphor bar. First day was 20 February 2013 at the Spring Stampex Exhibition at The Business Design Centre, London on 20 February 2013.

It is expected that the second class stamps will appear at offices with more than one Wincor-Nixdorf machine but not immediately. The suggestion is that this will occur over the summer of 2013. Both stamps are 56mm x 25mm in size and printed by Walsall Security Printer. The background print is a turquoise colour. This means that the only examples of these stamps, initially, will be from Tallent’s House or the kiosks at Stampex (and other stamp fairs). Presentation packs were available from the first day. They contained both of the new values.

The datastring used on these was A2GB13 C2-051840-10 or 11. This coding suggests that C2 is now located in Britain. The cattle packs from 2012 used the code A2NL12 and kiosk ident C2 suggesting that the printer was located in the Netherlands. Transaction number for the second class stamp is 10 and for the second large this number is 11. Stock from C1 was used to produce stock for the stamps used on first day covers from Tallents House. C1 prints stock from a roll while C2 prints sheets for presentation packs.

If one takes the time to compare the presentation pack stamps with the kiosk Hytechs at Stampex one can see that there are slight differences in the font size. In addition the second line of text is indented by 1-2mm.

Therefore all of the earliest second class stamps will be Hytech versions. I would welcome reports of Wincor versions appearing throughout the country.

ATM Informer

The third issue of my Newsletter should be available shortly after Spring Stampex. Featured offices will be Aldwych and Cambridge along with Stampex News, more on the 000000 ident and a lot more. 

Copies may be obtained by e-mailing me, going on to the Newsletter page of the PMECHUK website, or by going on to the ATM Informer Newsletter site.

 

Spring Stampex 2013

Spring Stampex will run between 20-23 February 2013 at the Business Design Centre in Islington. I hope to attend this fair and upload details on to my pmechuk website: sites.google.com/site/pmechuk/

Royal Mail will have their usual stand which is expected to have 2 backroom Hytech kiosks and at least 2 publicly accessible kiosks. On the first day, the new second class Machins are expected and will consist of two values - second class up to 100g and second class large. These two will only be available from presentation packs, Tallents House FDCs and from the Hytech kiosks at this shoe - at least initially. Roll out of these is expected over the summer and will probably occur at offices with more than one Wincor-Nixdorf Kiosk. I would welcome reports of introduction dates.

On the Friday, the new freshwater life - Ponds will be introduced. There will be the usual six stamps which on this occasion depicts: the Three-spined Stickleback, Emperor Dragonfly, Smooth Newt, Lesser Silver Water Beetle, Fairy Shrimp and Glutinous Snail. These should be available as Hytech versions from these kiosks while normal Wincor-Nixdorf versions should be found in the Wincor equipped post offices.

There should be an overprint available for the 60th anniversary of the coronation at Westminster.

I would also welcome reports of session numbers, dates and times from all four days of Stampex and any irregularities which may appear.

Newsletter

At the beginning of January 2013, I produced the first edition of a newsletter covering the postal ATMs in the UK. The second issue will be ready soon for distribution. Copies may be obtained by e-mailing me at pmechuk@gmail.com. The February issue will give the story of the first home made faststamps along with defining the terms in use covering this filed of study in the UK. Pulled stamps, office idents, fonts and news of issues. Hopefully, the March issue will include information on Spring Stampex 2013 and the first of three freshwater life issues.

I would welcome contributions of material fro this publication whether it is just session number data from one office to a multi-page article. 

Pulled Faststamps

The Norphil blog entry for 8 January makes it clear that it is unfortunate that a few people trying to make a few pounds because they have found a weakness in a system. I questioned the legitimacy of the extended strips that appeared at Autumn Stampex 2012 and rightly so. At the previous Autumn Stampex, a  flaw in the Hytech kiosks allowed a few people pull on the strip of stamps to generate blank and partially printed stamps. This problem was fixed by Spring Stampex 2012 with the addition of a cover making it impossible to reach the strip.

I must point out that a letter to Stamp Magazine at the time of Spring Stampex warned of this mis-use of the machine and rightly so as these "errors" were made available on ebay the same day as they were produced at a heavy premium.

With the new design of Hytech kiosk that appeared at Autumn Stampex 2012, it looked as though the problem could recur and, I mentioned it to others while waiting in the queue to purchase examples form the kiosk on the first day of the show in the presence of the engineer. When this error subsequently appeared, and again quickly appeared on ebay led one to suspect a repeat. 

I subsequently asked for information supporting the genuineness of these new errors via the Stamp Magazine forum, Norphil and other sources. This prompted a reply that these were genuine and that a video had been made of the strips being produced. This video is now on You-tube and it clearly illustrates that these particular examples are genuine errors.

I agree with Ian at Norphil that it is ridiculous that some one such as myself has to question the authenticity of some stamps. I apologise if this has upset anyone but surely it is better for this new area of UK collecting that we question the irregularities and stop any abuse before it turns people away from this field of interest.

Once more, I stress that I am not a dealer. I am a stamp collector who has collected since I was 5 (in 1961).  I do not have the temperament to be a dealer. My background is science and I have published a number of papers in learned journals. When I see a wrong result, I check it and re-check it to see what the problem was. That was my training and profession.

Therefore if I see something out of place with the Hytechs and Wincors  or indeed any other field should I keep quiet and let it go or ask for clarification? I want to hear from other collectors in this area. I want data on usage, dates of use, session numbers, what stamps were used where, faults, receipt varieties, etc. My email address is pmechuk@gmail.com.

000000 Idents

I have just received some images from a contact which are very interesting. They all have the office ident 000000 which was last used at Trafalgar Square/William IV Street office in July 2012. The images may be seen on the Stamp Magazine website under Forum and Post and Go/Faststamps.

The examples appear, from postmarks, to have been posted in Bideford/Exeter/Devon area and dated 29 November 2012. They routed to the Heathrow World Distribution Centre (HWDC) and processed on IMP3. HWDC processing was as expected.

However, there are some major irregularities in the font used and the introduction of a new rate "Worldwide upto 30g" rate.

Images and full story may be found at: www.sites.google.com/site/pmechuk/

I have made contact with a few others and had replies suggesting that the items are very likely forgeries. If you have similar examples, please email me at pmechuk@gmail.com.

Apologies, I am having some problems uploading pictures to my blog site at the moment.

Happy New Year

OK, so this  blog has not been as regular as expected but, as they say, "so much to do, so little time to do it!"

I have tried to keep this blog and the six websites up to date with developments. Much of the data is in relative raw form but just requires care and time to process it. As noted in the last blog entry, I have started a newsletter to disseminate the information and encourage more data to be sent in my direction. There are other organisations out there which charge for this service such as ATEEME who operate on  a business model. I do not. I don't have the business skills, money or mobility to set up such an organisation. 

What I do have is enthusiasm for knowledge and a background in scientific research. This is what I am trying to bring to to this new area of UK collecting - trying to record the data at the time it is being produced rather than waiting for a decade plus to try to piece things together like a jigsaw with more than half the pieces missing. I may not have that 10 years for those bits to come together.

So 2012 has seen three new pictorials and a re-released robin along with the overprints for Stampex, Perth and the BPMA. And don't forget the pop up post office!

2013 will see three pictorial issues - freshwater life and a second class machin. Add to that more Stampex varieties with overprints and yet another re-released robin.

Please get in touch if you have data that will help me put together a more coherent picture.

Happy New Year to one and all.