Autumn Stampex 2012 – The First Day
Autumn Stampex opened at 11.20 a.m. on the 26th
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 28th to close of
show. All of the faststamps will have a new office ident and machine ident. Thursday
29th 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 28th and I
will try to add a few more images of the units and screens.
