Machin Coil Stamps

Great Britain has produced rolls of stamps for use in machines since the early part of the 20th century. The first coils were simply normal sheets that were broken up into either rows or columns and stuck together to produce a continuous roll.

Later, rolls were to be produced as contiuous rolls and this is how all Machin coil stamps have been produced. Since the coil stamps are produced seperately from sheet and booklet stamps it should come as no suprise that some varieties of Machin were only ever made available as coil stamps.

SINGLE-VALUE COILS

Most, if not all, Machins valued at the 1st and 2nd class postal rates have been issued in coil form. Indeed, in recent times The Post Office now collects even more of collector's cash by issueing coil stamps for other rates too, somewhat aided by collectors insisting in collecting coil stamps as strips of 4 or 5 depending on which catalogue you read.

Coils have been printed for either horizontal or vertical delivery of the stamps (so collecting in strips of two would seem sensible?).

Sheet stamp [4K] Coil Stamp [4K]
An early variety is the pre-decimal 6d value. This was issued with the type B' head whereas the sheet stamps were issued with the type 'A' head.

25p From Sheets [5K] 25p From Coils[4K]
More recently, the 25p coil stamp was issued without the eliptical perforations that had become standard on both sheet and book stamps.

MULTI-VALUE COILS

Pre-decimal multi-value coil [16K]

The following multi-value coils have been issued. Being intended for use in public coin-operated machines the total value of each strip corresponds to one of the common coins then in use.

TABLE 1 : POST OFFICE MULTI-VALUE COILS
STRIP MAKEUP	DATE	NOTES
2d+2d+3d+1d+4d	[Blank]	The only pre-decimal multi-value coil (illustrated above)
2p+½p+½p+1p+1p	15th Feb 1971	Available with various forms of paper and gum.
6p+2p+1p+½p+½p	3rd Dec 1975	Issued following a substantial rise in the postal rates. The 6p coil stamp (right) has the lettering of the value in particularly thin lettering as compared to sheets (left). In addition, the strip can be found with the error "phosphor bars misplaced" so that each stamp has a broad center band, and as errors go it is cheap and readily available.
7p+1p+1p+½p+½p	14th Dec 1977
8p+1p+1p+two labels	16th Jan 1980

Readers Digest Strip [13K]

Later multi-value coils were not intended for public machines. Instead they were produced by the Post Office specifically for the use of a large direct mail marketing company known as "The Readers Digest". Since they were not intended for public coin operated machines, the total value of each strip did not need to match any particular coinage. Instead they were made to corresponded to the standard 2nd class postal rate in force at that time.

Although intended for use by The Readers Digest, The Post Office made the coil strips available from philatelic counters so these strips are easy to obtain.

TABLE 2 : "READERS DIGEST" MULTI-VALUE COILS
STRIP MAKEUP	DATE	NOTES
2½p+3p+3p+3p	June 1981
½p+4p+4p+4p	30th December 1981
1p+4p+4p+4p	14th August 1984
2p+4p+4p+4p	5th September 1988
4p+4p+4p+3p	10th October 1989	Strip illustrated above. The 3p value used a new font.
4p+4p+4p+5p	27th November 1990
4p+4p+5p+5p	???

MACHIN COILS

SINGLE-VALUE COILS

MULTI-VALUE COILS