Wincor Nixdorf and Hytech Scrapbook

I have just started working on another project based on these two kiosks varieties within Britain. To this end, I need lots more information. I need listings of what people have in their collections but in an unidentifiable form for security. What I require is office/date//kiosk/session number/issue data along with any other data on the receipt and office.

Could I have the data in the form:

Office location       ID code      Date      Kiosk   Session      Issue                      Notes

Trafalgar Square    015010     29/2/14      5       09876       Freshwater3           Address in lower case on

                                                                                                                         receipt. Font 1 on stamp

The more data I receive, the better the picture that can be put together on the usage of these kiosks and what they have produced. 

I can handle doc and xls files.

E-mail: pmechuk@gmail.com

Typical, Blooming Typical!!!

I know that I have been threatening to publish a catalogue/listing of Wincor-Nixdorf and Hytech material for the last year but it is so typical that as soon as I finish the word file to a pdf and send out the converted file that I get the news of a new Wincor installation in Derby. 

I haven't read all the details of this office yet but I will have more information in the ATM Informer issue 6 around the end of the month.

Anyway, the Wincor-Nixdorf and Hytech listing is now available free of charge from pmechuk@gmail.com. If you like the contents and wish to contribute something back, there are a listing of four charities just inside the cover page. A donation to any of them would be most welcome.

ATM Informer Issue 5 is Now Available.

The fifth issue is now available for down loading from my pmechuk website or the ATM Informer website. Either way, the newsletter is FREE. You can even e-mail me for a copy.

I still require data on session numbers, dates and what was available at Wincor-Nixdorf equipped offices within the UK. I know that the information is available given the number of views on the Stamp Magazine Forum thread and the large number of items for sale on e-bay. As may be seen in the Informer, a picture can be painted of the usage of the kiosks and when events have occurred such as resetting the session counter. 

I would appreciate the data in the format:

Office                  ID               Date             Kiosk     Session Number  Variety

Trafalgar Sq  015010     29 Feb 2014            1             012345            Pondlife 4

I can accept the data in .xls  or .doc format.

e-mail address is   pmechuk@gmail.com

ATM Informer

The  fourth issue of my Newsletter on the UK Wincor-Nixdorf and Hytech machines has just been uploaded to my ATM Informer Newsletter site and pmechuk site. Copies may be downloaded from either site or e-mailing me at pmechuk@gmail.com.

Included in this issue:

Salisbury Overprint

Forthcoming stamp shows, fairs, expos

Manchester Wincor Offices

Wincor-Nixdorf receipts part 1

Over 20 pages of information for free.

All contributions of data welcome!

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.

Stampex Data and Possible Newsletter

Kiosk B1 Information Wanted

I have been asked for information on the use of Kiosk B1 at Autumn Stampex. It was noticed that the date-line (1952-2012) is slightly indented from the line above (Diamond Jubilee) on the Cattle stamps erroneously overprinted for the Diamond Jubilee (it is clearly visible in the image on the pmechuk website). Can anyone supply jpeg images of items from this “backroom” kiosk (and time of purchase) as it is of interest as to when the indented date-line first occurred, by looking for the first overprinted Flag stamps from B1 with the same indent. So far, the indent is present on Flag stamps from session 334 at 12.48, session 390 at 15.06, session 446 at 17.50 all on 28 September; the latter session is very close to session 452 which produced the Cattle overprint. So it would be expected that the indent may have occurred on stamps from session 361 at 13.50 that you report in your table on the website.

Any additional information would be gratefully welcomed. Apart from knowing when the indent variant first occurred, it would also be interesting to know if it continued on stamps issued on Saturday 29 September, but so far no examples have been illustrated on the internet. 

E-mail me at pmechuk@gmail.com.

Possible Newsletter

I have been considering the suggestion about producing a regular newsletter on the UK ATMs which would be distributed electronically. There is some merit in the idea if others would be willing to contribute to its content. As a one man effort, my fear would be that it would fade away after a few issues but that would depend on you. E-mail address above.

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".

Twelve Kiosks, Four Offices and One Day (and no Partridge in a Pear Tree)

Yesterday, I had a day off from my duties. I had to go to Croydon for some information. I used this as an opportunity to visit four offices. These were Croydon (009013), Broadway (010011), Trafalgar Square (015010) and Farringdon Road (100003).

I can report that Croydon now has FIVE Wincor-Nixdorfs. According to information received, kiosks 4 and 5 were installed around April 2012. At the same time, kiosks 1 and 2 were modified to card only operation. All five kiosks were vending Robin stamps. Kiosk order (left to right) is 4, 5, 3, 1 and2.

Royal Mail have re-released the Robin stamp from the Birds 1 set for Christmas 2012 on 6 November 2012. Easiest way to identify the Christmas version is by having a pair.

Both of the Broadway kiosks were vending Robins as was the Farringdon Road office.

Trafalgar Square had kiosks 3 and 4 with the Robins while Pigs were available on kiosk 1 and Cattle on kiosk 2.

Clapham Common and Old Street

Over the Summer of 2012, three additional kiosks have appeared at these offices - one at Clapham Common  (005008) and two at Old Street (028003). I visited these offices on the 26th and 28th September respectively to obtain examples of all three kiosks. These are illustrated here.

Clapham Common 

This office is at 161-163 Clapham High Street SW4 7ST. The closest underground station is Clapham Common.

Old Street

Practically on the door of Old Street underground station, this office is at 205 Old Street EC1V 9QN. The station is out of shot to the right in this view and is accessed by a slope. This office was refurbished in July 2012 opening up the part of the office to the left of the entrance. The order of the kiosk are 2, 1, 3 and 4 from the front of the office.

Items from kiosks 3 and 4 are illustrated below.

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.

Kennsington High Street Crown Office, London W8.

Originally this office was sited at 257 Kennsington High Street but is now at 208-212 which is just about opposite the old office. The old office only had one kiosk present and items produced by this office had the office ident 011006. The current office has two kiosks. The office ident is now 012006.

I visited the office at 208-212 on the 10th July 2010 and the items obtained from both kiosks.

Kiosk 1 receipts had no address while kiosk 2 had the address in upper case lettering and the building number on a separate line. Kiosk 1 was vending sheep stamps while kiosk 2 was vending pigs. Session numbers for both kiosks on the 10 July 2012 may be obtained from the images above.

208-212 Kennsington High Street - present location.

257 Kennsington High Street - old location.

I visited the old office in July 2010 and the extract from the summary table from my pmechuk website is given below.

011006

W8 6DB

257 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6DB

27/11/09

The kiosk was at session 11693 on 16/7/10. No logo was printed on receipts.

1

I hope to add further entries giving details of items obtained from various Wincor-Nixdorf offices. In this way, I hope the evidence that I am producing will assist collectors of this material. I would welcome feedback and data on session numbers, stamps vended, errors and varieties, problems, etc at any and all offices throughout the UK. Either add a comment to this site or e-mail me at pmechuk@gmail.com.

Manchester - The Early Days of Wincor. 

I have just been scanning through some of the jpg images that I have built up of Wincor-Nixdorf material. Apart from including the material on my websites (wincoralbum1, 2, 3 and pmechuk), I haven't done much with it although I have made a start in writing up the story so far. My problem is the amount of data that I have in electronic form. I hate having to switch from one electronic document to another. I suppose that I am a bit of a Luddite preferring hard copies.

I lived in Manchester for while and was fortunate enough to be able to obtain examples of the Spring Garden kiosks from a few days after installation up to just after the change over from the "Horizon" style post and go labels to the "Smart Stamp" format. My handwritten notes are penciled on the sheets illustrated.

The earliest usage was around the 12th May 2009 but I did not stumble across the installation until the 14th. The image below shows first class faststamps from that initial week. Note that each receipt has the Post Office oval logo but up until the introduction of the V2 upgrade was one of three headers seen.

The Post and Go (PAG) labels from May/June 2009 and all three kiosks are shown below. They are of the "Horizon" style.

As noted above, three different headers appeared - the PO oval, Wincor-Nixdorf and no logo. All three forms are illustrated below.

Change over of the PAG to the "Smartstamp" format at Spring Gardens was around 30th June 2009.

Kiosk 1 produced a rather dramatic error where a larger than normal font lead to a wrap around of the data string. Examples of this fault are shown here. This fault was subsequently note at two offices in the Portsmouth area.

It should be noted that during this initial period there were issues on the functionality of the kiosks. It was common for at least one kiosk to be out of service in the first couple of months.

The unfortunate thing was that I moved from Manchester circa August 2009 and shortly afterwards two kiosks were installed at Brazennose Street and another at Hyde. I have since managed to complete the set of kiosks in the Manchester/Stockport area bar one at Brazennose Street. 

 

Cambridge Puzzle

Stardate: 140712

I have a little problem over the Cambridge Crown Office. It was originally at 9-11 St Andrew Street CB2 3AA and had the office ident code of 007113. About February March 2011 the office address changed to 57-58 St Andrew Street CB2 3BZ and the office ident became 008113.

In the recent updated listing form the ukpostagelabels website, the latter address is correct and two kiosks are present. However, today I received an item from a PMSC member with a Post and Go (PAG) from 007113 and 9-11 St Andrew Street CB2 3AA.

Of note is the kiosk number and session number 3 and 00022 respectively. The receipt is below and shows the former address. 

This would also suggest that kiosk 3 became operational on the 12th July 2012. 


Can anyone suggest what is going at Cambridge?

Stardate: 150712

This Cambridge office IS at 57-58 St Andrew Street. The address on the receipt is in error with respect to the location of the kiosk. It could be that because the address is wrong the kiosk printed the id associated with the old address.

Tesco Brent Park Wincor Ident 074005

Stardate: 130712

On Tuesday, I returned to Brent Park with the hope of finally getting an example of a faststamp from this kiosk. The office ident is 074005. The kiosk was installed on 7 December 2011 but due to staff training issues it was some time before it was brought into service and one of the last kiosks to be upgraded to V2.

I was successful in obtaining examples and these are shown above. The receipts are in the same format as those form Tudor Street (and other offices). Other services where proof of posting are required are not available from this kiosk and one still needs to go to the post office counter.

Wincor Office Ident Error!

Stardate: 120712

On one of my rare days off as a carer (10 July), I managed to run around London to visit some relocate post offices with Wincor ATMs. I also visited a few of my regular offices to update the data on session numbers and what faststamps were available. I managed to visit 10 offices and 18 kiosks in about six hours. So it was a case  of in to the office, buy a first class faststamp and receipt from a kiosk before moving on to the next without noticing much on either at the time of purchase.

When I got back home, I sorted out my "stash" of faststamps and receipts only to find a rather usual office and kiosk ident - 000000 as the office ident and 0 as the kiosk - on a receipt from William IV Street/Trafalgar Square. Kiosks 2, 3 and 4 were giving the correct office ident of 015010.

Example of the 000000 office ident with the 0 kiosk ident.

Receipt from kiosk 1 pretending to be kiosk 0.

Kiosk 2 was vending pigs and kiosks 3 and 4 were vending sheep faststamps. See my Wincoralbum1 and
 Wincoralbum2 websites to see the evidence.

You Tube and ATM Stamps

Periodically, I have to search the internet for news and space fillers for the PMSC Newsletter. Sometimes I find clips on You Tube that illustrate some aspects of postal mechanisation. The following is one such collection.

One clip looks amodifying the design t of the software for the Post and Go kiosks. Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5RFx4qlwyc. Possibly more of Post and Lego (Let go)!

A Mail and Go (Pitney Bowes) system may also be found on You Tube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnC_J7GFHRA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0IO6BE7638&feature=related

The Fujitsu Post and Go kiosk that was in use circa 2007/8 is also depicted in a You tube clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK-J8IP_gZM&feature=related Well worth a few minutes watching if you are interested in this area of philately.

Request to all UK Wincor Faststamp/PAG Collectors

Stardate:100612
For the last two years, I have been trying to piece together the usage of the Wincor-Nixdorf Propostal 2000 kiosks throughout the UK with very variable results. Most of the data has been obtained from personal observations, reports from PMSC members, ebay and a few other contacts. The websites with my findings are listed in yesterday's blog.

I would welcome reports of usage for any and all kiosks throughout the country. Session numbers, date and faststamp available along with any additional data from the receipt are needed to build up the overall picture.

I would like to build up a series of pages giving what information is available. The basic layout would include the office id, postcode, number of kiosks, the address of the post office and the first date of use. This would be followed by what information I have on the usage at that office and then any pictures, etc associated with the office. A sample is given below.

020511	BS1 3XX
3 (initially 2)	The Galleries, Castle Gallery, Broadmead, Bristol, BS1 3XX.
8/10/08

First machines in service in the UK. Some kiosks converted for use to sell Bird pictorials on 17/9/10.  New font (font type 2) on Faststamps from 11/9/10. Third kiosk added late 2010. Date unknown (Dec2010?): Kiosk 2 at session 71326 and kiosk 3 at session 3824. Kiosk 2 printing normally with font 2 but kiosk 3 was printing a large gap between office id and transaction number. Upright of d plus e of “worldwide” on the pictorial area. 10/1/11 kiosk 3 at session 4654. 12/1/11 Machin faststamps on kiosk 1 and at session 73004. PO logo on receipt. 14/1/11 Kiosk 3 vending Machins font 2 at session 4996. Wide gap variety. No logo on receipt. 10/1/11 kiosk 3 at session 4654. 22/1/11 Kiosk 3 at session 5596. Worldwide faststamp using larger type (font 1) for “Up to 10g” while rest in font 2. Machin version in use. PO oval being printed on kiosk 3 receipts on 22/1/11. All kiosks used to sell second set of Bird pictorials on 24/1/11 Kiosk 1 at session 74188, kiosk 2 at session 73642 and kiosk 3 at 6045 on 26/1/11. Spacing error and 10g Worldwide in bold on kiosk 3. Spelling error on receipt “Broamead”. 2/2/11 Kiosk 3 vending Birds 2 font 2 at session 6806. Wide gap variety. No logo on receipt. 7/2/11 Kiosk 3 vending Birds 2 font 1/2 at session 6986. Wide gap variety. No logo on receipt. 12/2/11 Kiosk 3 vending Birds 2 font 1/2 at session 7438. Wide gap variety. No logo on receipt 16/2/11 Kiosk 3 at session 7683. 20/7/11  Kiosk 1 vending Birds 3 font 2 at session 8559. PO oval on receipt. 15/2/12 PO oval logo on receipts from all 3 kiosks. Kiosks 1 and 3 vending Birds4 while Kiosk 2 vending Machin. Kiosk 1 at sessions 1212-3, kiosk 2 at sessions 846-7 and kiosk 3 at sessions 31396-7. Strong suggestion that kiosks 1 and 2 have recently been re-set.

For most offices, I have only one or two bits of information whereas for a handful I have enough to show trends in usage.

If you can fill in any information of usage at any office, either comment below or email me at pmechuk@gmail.com.

Attack of the Biro

Stardate: 090612

Two more covers from my “massive” mailshot have just dropped through the letterbox. Two envelopes with the Three Crosses, Swansea first day cancel. The envelopes were stamped and posted in Exeter by a member of staff at the Bedford Street Branch on my behalf. My thanks to the manager and staff there and at the other offices who have responded to my mailshot request.

The receipts have the PO oval that has been adopted as standard since the V2 software update. The address has a minor variation from the normal. The first line has the street name in lower case. The rest is in normal upper and lower case. The postcode has no gap between the outward and inward parts of the postcode. The data is presented below in the same format as the tables in previous blogs

EX1

021519

Exeter

21/5/12

K1 84953 Flag K2 -------- K3 --------

Kiosk 1: First line of address in lower case on receipt. Rest as normal. No space in the postcode

The big problem with the envelopes occurred downstream from the post office and the special handstamp centre. It probably happened in the “last mile”. Someone attacked the faststamps with a biro!!!!

Royal Mail – You do a great job and you have some wonderful staff but it is a pity that one or two let you down. Unfortunately, that happens in many organisations – a lot of work and excellent service by the many is let down by the odd one.

Under normal circumstances, this would not be a problem. Most people would discard the envelope as its contents would be the most relevant part of the item. For stamp collectors, the stamp and/or the envelope are important. With normal first day covers, one can return the cover and get a replacement. Normal stamps do not have an indication as to when they were sold printed on them but faststamps do. A replacement from this office and kiosk would have a session number in the order of 86000 plus given that more than two weeks have since passed since the day of release whereas I would estimate genuine first day items from this office to have session numbers in the approximate range 84900 to 85000.

I started a number of websites to document the usage of these Wincor-Nixdorf kiosks and to try to assist collectors determine the validity of the items that they are being offered. These websites are:

https://sites.google.com/site/pmechuk

https://sites.google.com/site/pmechuk1

https://sites.google.com/site/pmechuk2

https://sites.google.com/site/wincoralbum1

https://sites.google.com/site/wincoralbum2

If you can help by filling in the large gaps in data on each kiosk that has been used, either leave a comment on this blog site or email me at pmechuk@gmail.com.