Great Britain Collectors Club Member Tom Myers would like to ask GBPS Members for a little help with the following inquiry:
Coil production.

Since the time of G5, some coils, both vertical and horizontal format are made up with pasted joins every few stamps. Others are from long strips without joins.

The coils with joins must be made from individual sheets. Why? With rotary printing you can get long strips as evidenced by the long coils without joins. Are the single sheets flat plate?

Are the joins made by hand or machine? Were they originally made by hand and now by machine.

Thanks for your help
Tom

Initially all coils were made up from sheet stamps, joined by hand. Grover made a Gumming Table (for making up sheets of stamps into reels) and also Slitting and Reeling machines, to assist. From 1913, Somerset House experimented with continuous printing but it was not until the early 1920s that they were successful. The first continuously printed stamps were issued in a 1d coil, stamp SG N17A. When the contract passed to Waterlow in 1924 this was on the basis that coils would be made from continuous printed stamps, without joins. However stamps in coils for values where the usage was not sufficient to warrant continuous printing, these continued to be joined by hand.

Dear Leslie,
Many thanks for your kind assistance with Tom's inquiry!
Very best regards, Tim

Does anyone else have the same interest as myself. i.e. Coil leaders and related material?
I am currently studying the differences in roll numbers locations, and type settings, but collect any varieties, whether they be on stamps, leaders or ends.
If anyone out there has a shared interest, or any material on which they could pass information, it would be nice to hear from you
Dave.

As a collector of KGV and KGVI and QEII coils and any others I can find I produced a bibliography of articles on coils in 1978. Although out of date for basic details the articles are still of use and I'm sure the bibliography can be updated. Ref : GBJ Vol. 16(5) p 110-111 (October 1978).
In fact this week I spent time at the British Postal Museum and Archives hunting out information on KG V coils. At present the main problem with KG V coils is finding them.

Jean

P.S. In reply to Tim's query the original continuous printing in 1924 was from flat plates and was not rotary, that came later.

Jean

I do have the little booklet by W.Ward " A book about British books of stamps and rolls" published in 1925 I could mail to you if interested. Please

I've placed a PDF of Jean's Bibliography on the Web site: go to Journal, GBJ Archive. (Incidentally, the reference should be GBJ, Vol. 16, No. 6, pp. 110-111 (November 1978).)

Mike

Hi, Dave,
In response to your query, I collect the photogravure coils, leaders, and ends, but only as part of a general collection of the 1934-36 photogravure issue of KG V. I am also interested in the possibility of private coils being produced comprising only of stamps of the 1935 KG V Silver Jubilee issue! If you - or anyone else - has information on this aspect of the KG V coils, I would be interested to learn of it.

Harvey