Can You Believe Or Trust Your Leader - Apparently Not!

Hi All,

Our collection of the G.B. Machin stamps includes a selection of coil leaders.

For those who do not know of them they are the 'outer roll wrapper' of the rolls of

stamps dispensed from stamp machines.

This illustration is one of the se-tenant strips of five stamps dispensed from the 10p machines.

Now to the crux of thread title.
One would assume that the information printed on the coil leader regarding the roll number, number of stamps, details of stamps, delivery, price and stamp type would all be correct.

However, on this G3 coil





the stamps are described as QE II - Machin- 1 phos - pva.
In fact the stamps have two phosphor bands, not one and the gum is not pvaI

On this 1p stamp leader






the gum had been changed from pva to gum arabic but the leader still showed pva.

They were later amended by blanking out pva and substituting ga.






Anyone seriously interested in the Machin stamps should know of Douglas Myall.
Whatever you need to know about these issues, you will find the answer in
The COMPLETE DEEGAM MACHIN HANDBOOK®

He has very generously made his 'Priced Catalogue of Elizabethan Coil Leaders 54-94' available as a free download from his website at


http://www.deegam.com/handbook.htm

An incredibly valuable source of information for anyone interested in these issues.
Listed by stock letters with description of the leader, issue date, layout and description of stamps with all details of phosphor, gum and additional notes. Each issue is also priced.

There are plenty of coil leaders available at reasonable prices and they add a little 'something different' to a collection.

Hope they are of interest to some collectors.

More Machins, especially booklets on our non commercial website at

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Regards to all
Ron.

This is fascinating stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Even though it is way outside my usual areas of interest, I agree with smauggie...fascinating stuff.