Hytech Kiosks A1, A3 and A4

From 16 November 2012 to 24 December 2012, two new Hytech kiosks will be available for use at a "Pop Up" Post Office at Unit 17A, Stables Market Camden, Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8AH. The kiosks involved are coded A3 and A4.  

From data on the net and a visit today (3/12/12), the impression that I am getting is that it is mainly dealers and collectors of this material that are serching out this venue. Apparently, Saturday (1/12/12) was a busy day because the ident changed from ANGB12 to ADGB12. 

The desk cancels have as the location "Equipment Team Temporary" and have the codes 32 and 42. I asked if they were associated with the Head Office Model Office who tend to oversee these sort of trials of new machinery but was told that they weren't. They were just volunteers to man the office.

The British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) have received Hytech kiosk A1 and the first day of use was Monday 3/12/12. The unit is vending Machins and Robins with the overprint "The B.P.M.A.". This kiosk was used at Autumn Stampex 2012 and Perth 2012. The session numbers continue on from Perth2012. My examples were obtained at 14:19 on 3/12/12 and were from session 746.

After Christmas, the Robin stamp is to be replaced by the flag issue.

There were some teething problems with the kiosk at the BPMA on the first day requiring regular intervention by staff. 

Post and Go - Hytech Releases 

Recent weeks has seen some new developments regarding the Hytech kiosks. In October we saw the release of Perth 2012 Machins and Flags. The BPMA is to receive a kiosk on the 3 December and now we learn that a Pop Up Post Office has appeared at Camden Market with two new Hytechs - A3 and A4.

The worrying thing is the lack of information being released as to these new developments that could result in a few people who happen to be in the right place at the wrong time making a killing on ebay by overcharging collectors.

Autumn Stampex 2012 saw session numbers from circa 10 to around 500 on the faststamps produced at that show. Perth 2012 saw the highest session number around the 700-750 mark. This shows that the demand is there for these products, yet the collector has to rely on dealers or being there to get examples. This sort of material should be available through the Philatelic Bureau.

Already, there are suggestions that Royal Mail is seeing the Wincors and the Hytech "specials" as cashcows and that some collectors are threatening to stop purchasing the "specials".

Wincor-Nixdorf and Hytech Cattle

I was fortunate to re-visit the Autumn Stampex event on the 28th September for the release of the Cattle faststamps. I wanted examples from both the Wincor-Nixdorf and the Hytech on the first day.

I stopped off at William IV Street/Trafalgar Square to obtain examples of the "normal" Wincor stamps. Kiosks 1 and 2 were vending sheep and kiosks 3 and 4 were producing the cattle stamps. I purchased single examples of the faststamps from kiosks 1 to 3 and two sets of six first class stamps from kiosk 4 to fill FDC requirements.

The Wincors produced were as expected - font 1 and with the normal ident (015010). The datastring is as normal - 015010 4-06244-01. The receipt had one minor variation - the address was all on one line and in lower case lettering. Of note is the session number, 06244, which is low. This would suggest a resetting around the 17th July. This is about the same time as the 000000 fault on kiosk 1 which was also reset about that time.

The Hytech produced a new form of datastring which includes letters - A9GB12 A1-000259-06. The "A" in A1 indicates a kiosk which may be used by the public, "B" is a backroom kiosk and "C" is for Philatelic Bureau produced items. The basic receipts for the Hytech are much simpler and yet more complicated than the Wincors but come in two or more parts - the basic order receipt (illustrated) a card receipt (not illustrated) and a receipt for any collector's strips.

The fonts in use in both kiosks for printing the stamps now seem to match each other.

Both sets were cancelled by the Stampex first day cancel for this set.

Autumn Stampex "Faults" - NOT AN ADVERT

A brief search on e-bay through up another batch of Hytech "faults". These are strips with missing or poorly positioned text.They are on offer at up to just under £200. One example is illustrated below.

A similar occurrence was reported about a year ago where similar stamps were produced at Stampex. A note on their existence also appeared in Stamp Magazine. It was reported then that this sort of fault was produced by pulling on the strip as it was printed. The advice given at that time was not to touch these as they are not genuine faults but constructs by the purchaser.

To overcome this problem, the previous machine was modified by the addition of a guard. This was not included on the current design. 

Be warned! These are probably NOT genuine faults. I suggest that they should NOT be purchased.

A follow up item on the Norphil Blog has suggested that a fault did happen. One person commenting claims to have videoed this fault as it happened. The engineer was called and the fault fixed. The kiosk in question was A1.

I can confirm that at 12:37 this machine was working correctly on the Friday and the session number was 259. The above item from ebay and others on that site have session numbers around 300-310. Another correspondent on the Norphil Blog site reported that the kiosk was working at 14:45. 

I still have some doubts but, given the circumstances from Autumn 2011 Stampex, I feel that it is best to question an item than pay over hard cash and then find out that someone has "worked the system".

NOT AN ADVERT

There also seems to have been a bit of a slip up in installing stock (possibly on the Saturday) where the cattle stamps had been put in the printer that previously was used to print the flags. This occurred on kiosk B1 which was at the back of the Royal Mail stand.

Some genuine varieties have been posted on ebay. These are cattle stamps from Wincor-Nixdorf kiosks where, for some reason, font 1 has reappeared leading to the usual partially missing text varieties.

This examples, here, are from Kings Square, Gloucester with the office ident 014523. This fault has been reported at this office on previous issues. 

Strips of the missing "up to 10g" variety from the same machine are also available on e-bay.

NOT AN ADVERT

Autumn Stampex Part 2

I managed another visit to Stampex today for the release of the Cattle faststamps. Cover was arranged and off I went with my first stop being William IV Street/Trafalgar Square (015010). Kiosks 1 and 2 were vending sheep and 3 and 4 the cattle stamps. A set from kiosk 3 was purchased and put onto FDC (which was subsequently posted at Stampex). Individual examples from each kiosk were purchased. 

Trafalgar Square Kiosk 3 (28/9/12)

Kiosk 4 has been producing a variety on the receipt were the address is on a single line and in lower case text.

Trafalgar Square receipt from 26/9/12. This format was also seen on the 28th.

Next stop was Aldwych (008010). There  was the suggestion on a blog that a third kiosk may have been installed. I can definitely state that there are still two kiosks at this office vending cattle stamps.

Back to Charing Cross underground and the Northern line to Euston then change to the Bank branch to Angel and the Design Centre. I arrived around 12.30 and the Royal Mail stand was quieter than it was on the morning of the first day but it was still doing good business.

Kiosk A1 was set up to just sell the cattle stamps while A2 was vending both jubilee flags and cattle. The cattle stamps were also available from B1 and B2 from the counter. I purchased examples from all four kiosks and prepared a cover using stamps from A2.

Kiosk B1 at Stampex (28/9/12)

The presentation packs were also available. The stamps have the data string A9NL12 C2-051840-06.

Final stop was Old Street (028003) where the same blog reported that two more kiosks were due at the end of July. This office has undergone quite a make over giving it a more spacious layout by removing some office space. There are four kiosks numbered 2, 1, 3 and 4. Kiosk 2 was out of order during my visit but other three were vending the cattle stamps.

 Old Street Kiosk 3 (28/9/12)

Old Street Kiosk 4 (28/9/12)

In the last Stampex  blog entry, I mentioned the number of receipts issued for an order. As well as the receipt for the overall order, receipts were produced for each of the collector’s strip and another for the card payment. All but the card payment receipt are illustrated here.

Finally an example of the flag stamp from the new kiosk (number 3) at Clapham on the 26th September with the associated receipt.

Autumn Stampex 2012 – The First Day

Autumn Stampex opened at 11.20 a.m. on the 26^th of September. The weather was slightly overcast. The big news for GB and ATM collectors is the presence of two new kiosks from Hytec. In addition, two further kiosks are in the back of the stand to run off pre-ordered faststamps. 

The programme of releases during the show include Flag fastsamps with and without the Jubilee overprint, Pig fastamps for the first two days and the new Cattle faststamps from Friday 28^th to close of show. All of the faststamps will have a new office ident and machine ident. Thursday 29^th sees yet another Olympic minisheet.

For this show, the Royal Mail stand is up one level and at the back of the hall. I suspect it is to encourage people beyond the entrance of the fair. Most of the early visitors seemed to be heading there to access the Hytecs or fill the gaps in their collections from the main part of the RM stand.

My target was the Hytecs. However, there were teething problems. A check on one kiosk threw up a little error on the “Europe up to 40g” which required a last minute reprogramming before we were allowed access to the machines. It originally read “up tp”. This change then lead to problems getting the machines working with a number of re-boots required which delayed things for 20-30 minutes. This was followed by printer error messages every so often requiring the engineer to open the units.

Kiosk A2

Kiosk A1

Visible inside the unit were three printers in the order stamp, receipt and stamp. From the angle that I viewed the “works” I could not see much more than the printers and what could be a power supply unit. I also noticed a toy racing car and suggested that they had done away with the conventional bus system and replaced it with a “high speed racer”. It didn’t go down well. (A2 is the closed kiosk and A1 is open).

From what was being said, there were also similar problems with the backroom kiosks and the engineer was making regular trips back and forward.

Unfortunately, the reflections on the screens make it difficult to photograph the text.

Flags Kiosk A1

Pigs Kiosk A1

Flags Kiosk A2

Pigs Kiosk A2

Both public machines were set up to deliver either the flags or the pigs. Kiosk A1 was not producing flags with the Jubilee print while Kiosk A2 plus the two in the back were. It should be noted that the backroom kiosks (B1 and B2) were only being used to produce the overprinted flags to keep up with the orders (circa 1.30p.m.).

 Flags Kiosk B1

Flags Kiosk B2

As previously reported on the Norphil blog site and the postagelabelsuk web site, a new format for the office ident and kiosk ident is being employed on these kiosks.

A9GB12 A2-000026-01

A9GB12 is the “office” ident currently in use. The significance of the first A is unknown. The 9 signifies September, GB is Britain and 12 is the year 2012.

A2 is the kiosk identifier. A signifies that the kiosk is accessible to the public and the 2 identifies the kiosk.

000026-01 is the session number and the transaction number as with the Wincors and previous Hytec issues at Stampex.

I also must apologise for the quality of the images presented here. Usually I scan the faststamps before uploading but this time I used a digital camera at the show before applying the stamps to cover. I will be including scans of the receipts and upload the material shortly.

I hope to revisit this show on the 28^th and I will try to add a few more images of the units and screens.