Vending Machine Stamp

Hi.
The ink has completely disappeared on the stamp strip (P) and almost completely on those of $1.30, $1.94 and $2.71 purchased in 2020 at a vending machine stamp. Never seen the light, being stored in an album (Lighthouse Vario pages) It annoys me, anyone have this problem?
Paul.

Yes, this is a known problem with wildly varying differences depending on quality of storage. The data here has been thermally printed like on cash register receipts and is not intended to and probably will not last forever. The same might apply to the gum used.

See the section on image life:
https://gorillaoutput.com/how-long-...labels-last/

I do not think it is related to storage conditions (although I would agree that exposing them to light will increase fading), it is the nature of all thermal printing. See my posts about this issue back in 2018. Ultimately no matter what the environmental conditions, the thermal printing will all fade away
https://goscf.com/t/61174

Don

Perhaps the smart thing to do is to photocopy your pages for future reference.

Agreed, I have been questioning the 'collectability' of these for a number of years in this community. At best, you really only need to collect one each of the backgrounds since the denomination thermal printing will fade to nothing at some point.

Don

Thank you Don for your information about the thermal printing, it explains the current situation very well.

I am really disappointed with the quality of this product and from now on there are no longer part of my collectible material.
Without the ink it will be harse to differenciate every issue from 2016 up to today since they always used the same images on all denomination.

You should contact Canada Post, Canadian Stamp News, Royal Philatelic Society of Canada, Unitrade Canada Specialized Stamp Catalogue, etc. with your concern regarding these stamps.

How is it that the stamps on the OFDC have not faded in the least?

and

Why is it that the first kiosk issues (2012-13) have not faded?
(This must be of vital concern to any who have the $1.22 issue;)

Depends upon the design of the kiosk and which type of printing technology they choose to use.

When a kiosk needs to print 'on-the-fly' the highest level decision is; how we deal with the consumables in the field? This is an especially critical decision for kiosks which are doing high volume printing.

Do they have an army of techs or other trained employees who can quickly access the device and replace the ink consumables? Ideally you do not want the kiosk offline for more than an hour or two. You already have to be able to support the rolls of blank stamps (label).

With 'direct' thermal printing, you only have to support the roll of labels. The labels themselves have a coating which reacts to a thermal head and instructions on which parts of the label to heat.

'Transfer' thermal printing is different, it used a separate roll of 'ink' (think balck colored glassine rolled up) which advances with each stamp. The thermal head heats up specific areas on the thermal roll and it transfer it to the stamp.

And of course, they could also choose other printing tech such as ink jet.

Kiosks typically use the cheapest (including accounting for field support costs) printing tech which is 'direct' thermal.

I do not know which printing tech Canadian Post has used over its history with kiosks. I assume they used different printing technologies and/or have evolved over time.

Keep in mind that they are probably not concerned with how long the printing lasts (collector-wise) as long they last long enough for the intended use (used as postage). Lasting 5-7 years is fine for being used as postage and in fact it might even be considered a 'benefit' that the stamps 'demonetized' themselves over time. A kind of planned obsolescence. <shrugs>
Don

I find that with Spanish meters,
some have remained dark black, others, print has almost disappeared.

Perhaps these "stamps" are actually designed to fulfill a postal purpose rather than to extract money from collectors.

AQ