Spring Stampex - Additional Material

Stardate 260212


I have spent some time today scanning the first batch of Stampex material with other material due early in the week.

On the first day of Stampex, kiosk 21 was the more popular of the two public area. The reason was the new  Jubilee Machin Faststamp. Illustrated below is a Collector's strip of the six available values.

As with all new issues, I try to get a first day of each. The Jubilee Machin was treated no differently. The normal Stampex stamp cancel was used to cancel the covers.

To my mind, the Collector's strip seems to be another way for Royal Mail to milk the collector and, going by some of the eb*y listings/offers, some dealers are not adverse to obtaining their two pounds of flesh by inflating the price of the Faststamps. I prefer to just stick with the basic value (1st Class up to 100g) to represent the issue.

Kiosk 22 was vending the Bird 4 faststamps. These were similar to those issued at the Autumn 2011 Stampex. The difference was in the kiosk ident number "22".

First day of Birds 4 on kiosk 22.

A minor flaw was spotted on the 7th and 10th stamps of a batch bought about 1130am on the 22nd. Examples are illustrated below.

Kiosks 23 and 24 differed from those used by the public. They were desk top versions. Kiosk 23 sold the Jubilee Machins and kiosk 24 the Birds 4 an the 22nd and 23rd February.

 Examples from kiosks 22 and 24 issued on the 22nd and 24th are illustrated below showing the birds and the sheep issues

Collectors of this material should also note that the presentation packs produced by Tallent's House with six of the first class stamps were available at the show. (Also from Tallent's House and Some Post Offices). The kiosk ident used was 02.

For those new to this field, the data string gives information on the office, kiosk, session and transaction within the session normally but for presentation packs the data string just gives dates and a kiosk ident.

The presentation pack examples above all have the string 002012 02-51840-05. 002012 is the year of issue, 02 is the kiosk ident, 51840 is May 1840 - the date of issue of the penny black and 05 is just a nominal transaction number.

For normal Wincor-Nixdorf equipped offices, a typical data string would be 015010 2-70961-01. In this instance 015010 is the office identifier (Trafalgar Square/William IV Street Office), 2 is the kiosk ident, 70961 is the session number (on 22/2/12) and the transaction number 01 within the session.