Since 1967, Great Britain and its regions have been using stamps featuring the Machin Head image of Queen Elizabeth. The series gets its name from the designer of the image, Arnold Machin. Machins comprise the most prolific series in stamp collecting history!
Excluding minor varieties, there are 575 Machin Heads stamps of several types:
- 20 pre-decimal issues (1967-1970)
- 287 decimal issues
- 43 non-denominated issues
- 19 barcoded issues
- 7 anniversary issues (featuring Queens Victoria and Elizabeth, to mark the 150th anniversary of the first stamp in 1990)
- 64 Northern Ireland issues
- 60 Scotland issues
- 60 Wales issues
- 4 Isle of Man issues
- 11 other (including airmails, etc.)
While I don't expect to fall into the abyss that is Machin collecting anytime soon, I can see how it would become an engrossing pursuit. There are over 3,000 varieties, and even a basic set of Machin stamp album pages is 30 pages long! An online version of Simplifying the Machins is 32 pages in length! I just like the range of colours and the longevity that the Machine have enjoyed with the Royal Mail. Getting into the weed of fonts, perforation styles and revised portraits are not for me. I albumize my Machins on double-sided black stock sheets. This allows for moving them around because I have arranged them by type, and within each type by value i.e. 1P up to values in Pounds.
Unfortunately for soaking purposes, security features were added in 2009 to make soaking an unpleasant exercise. To further reduce counterfeiting scammers, current Machins come with a two-dimensional data matrix barcode.
Interestingly, I recently came across several copies of the blue 'E' value for Europe-bound mail, since discontinued. Who says Machins are boring?
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