Norvic Philatelics - GB New Stamps and Special Postmarks

Prestige Stamp Book Errors - this time it's the Machin, and lots of them!

The Machin 40th Anniversary Prestige Stamp Book was issued on 5 June 2007: only days later, the first errors were reported.

8 June 2007. When he examined two Machin PSBs supplied by Royal Mail's Philatelic Bureau, a lucky collector in Kent found that one of them had 5 pages of stamps! Pane 3, containing two pairs of the Machin Anniversary stamps, was duplicated. Although the face value is only £1.36 more than he paid for the booklet, the collector is very pleased at the first significant error for his collection.

photograph showing Machin Anniversary prestige stamp book with pane 3 duplicated.

Update 8 June, later In a second report, a booklet with pane 2 (containing 2 x £1 stamps) duplicated has been reported by a dealer. The error book was found in a printer-sealed pack of 10 books delivered by the Philatelic Bureau. The other 9 books in the pack were normal.

photograph showing Machin Anniversary prestige stamp book with 
pane 2 duplicated.

The people who reported to us all received their booklets direct from the Philatelic Bureau, but the July issue of Stamp Magazine reported that one booklet with duplicated pane 3 was bought at a Post Office in Kent.

Update 10 July. Over a month later, we had another report. Two books purchased from the Bureau included one with the error of duplicated pane 4, as shown below.

photograph showing Machin Anniversary prestige stamp book with 
pane 4 duplicated.

Thus only a duplicated pane 1 remained undiscovered, but almost at the same time a set of 4 booklets, each one with a different duplicated pane, was listed on the online auction site eBay, where it sold for £465 - click here to see.

Update 18 July. The last piece of the jigsaw was another report of a pair of booklets purchased from the Philatelic Bureau, one of which has a duplicate pane 1:

photograph showing Machin Anniversary prestige stamp book with 
pane 1 duplicated.


As with other prestige books, the panes are printed in larger 'press sheets' so there should be between 11 and 19 more of these errors in existence depending on the size of the press sheet. But the way the books are assembled, cut and packaged may mean that only a few have been sold so far. The book remains on sale from the Philatelic Bureau and the others may be there, in a post office branch, at the PO central stores or in a collection - as yet unnoticed. Because of this it is impossible to put a final value on the discoveries, but the results of the eBay listings will help.


Update 4 February 2008. When I wrote on 18 July last that "the last piece in the jigsaw" had been found, in the form of a booklet with duplicated pane 1, I thought that was it. But no, just today we have been sent a picture of a booklet with duplicated front cover! I suppose with quality control as lax as it obviously seems to have been on this product, we could expect to see duplicated non-stamp pages or a duplicated back cover:

photograph showing Machin Anniversary prestige stamp book with 
front cover duplicated.


Update 25 March 2008. We have had a second report of a duplicated pane 2 (£1 ruby) delivered as a single booklet from Royal Mail Tallents House.


© 2008 Norvic Philatelics


Have you found one of these errors, or any other error? We would like to hear from you!
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This page created 8 June 2007, updated 25 March 2008

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