Home > Displays > 'Britain's Marvelous Machins' > Index

'Britain's Marvelous Machins'

Introduction

Great Britain's Machin definitives have proven to be a significantly long-lived series having begun in 1968 and continuing to the present. Over this period of time, the printings have recorded changes in currency, rates, production processes, security features, materials and artistic standards. The driving forces behind the changes have been Post Office Revenue Management, Automation Requirements and Cost Reduction with the intended and unintended consequences resulting in over five thousand cataloged varieties.

The purpose of this exhibit is to capture a period of rapid, pivotal printing history by presenting ten decimal values from their inception in 1971 to the present. The presentation is therefore limited to the stamp printings only, excluding postal history, pre-cursor material such as color trials and a study of rates.

The exhibit will focus on explanations for fundamental, evolutionary changes to the stamps in the series. The large number of varieties arise from the combination of process, materials and design factors across values. The stamps, having been born into a period of rapidly improving technology, are perhaps better viewed as high-technology tariff devices.

Exhibit Frame Progression

Because of the complexity of construction of a Machin stamp, this exhibit is organized in the following fashion:

I. Base-Line Printings -- These frames explore the Gum, Paper, Phosphor/Fluor materials as intended by printers' implementation of Post Office specifications. The first five frames are essentially an introduction to the basic ½p-5p printings. The printings section begins with the right-hand side of frame 1 and continues through frame 5.

II. Interactive Technology -- These frames explore variations in the application of phosphor/fluor inks as well as providing a brief history of their development and use of these compounds to drive automation.

III. Visual Elements -- As unadorned as the Machin design is, there are a surprising number of factors that produce distinctive visually discernable varieties. These are explored in the final three frames.

Organization: This exhibit's topics are allocated in the frame representation, above, in value-catalog number-chronological order, at the page level, within each chapter, to the degree allowed by layout constraints. This permits a logical presentation of evolution and variation within each of the three major developmental threads and means that, in general, chronological order moves from upper left to the right and down in each chapter of the exhibit.

Viewing: This exhibit has been designed to be accessible by Machin experts and beginners. If you are new to the subject, the introductory pages in each chapter will assist you in understanding how variation arises. If you are familiar with Machins, moving directly to the 'Printings' pages of each chapter may be beneficial.

Completeness: Exhibiting one example of each variety, even with the limited scope of chosen values, would require space for 834 printings or about one and a half times greater frame space. Rather, I have chosen to categorize the display of the printings into three chapters containing major printing divisions each of which contains variety subdivisions as defined predominately from the Deegam Catalog (see page 6). All major printings are represented and fully 95% of the subdivision varieties are represented with at least one example from one or more values.

This introduction is taken from Stephen's more complete synopsis of the exhibit (6-page PDF file).

CONTENTS

Frames

Login

'Britain's Marvelous Machins'

Introduction

Frame 1

Frame 2

Frame 3

Frame 4

Frame 5

Frame 6

Frame 7

Frame 8

Frame 9

Frame 10

Username:
Password: