Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
28 Apr 2012
11:46:16am

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

Pick a Favorite Machin Color ???
That is akin to picking a favorite grand child.
No way, Jose !

Any time I could possibly choose one color and mount it somewhre a dozen other colors and their first cousins, "Shades", would jump out and attack me for showing favoritism.
With easily 100 distinguishable colors and about 460 color/values to choose from this would be an impossible task.

No, my favorite has to be limited to the last one I held between the tangs of my tongs, again much like the way my favorite grandchild is always the last one I clamped between my lunch hooks.

michael78651
28 Apr 2012
01:25:57pm

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

I'm waiting for them to come out with a pigeon blood pink Machin.

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

I simply cannot choose between this "bright emerald" and this "some sort of purple".
But it takes a lot of time to narrow it down to those 2

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. - Aristotle Onassis
30 Apr 2012
05:30:02pm

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

Mark - I saw long and short wave UV lights on ihobb.com

I don't know if they are reasonably priced or not, but it may be an option for you.

lisaslunacy.com

michael78651
30 Apr 2012
08:10:04pm

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

There are two types of UV lights needed to view tagging on stamps, longwave and short wave. The longwave light is the same as what is commonly known as a "black light". You should be able to find those bulbs relatively easy at places like Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

The shortwave light is dangerous, and should not be looked into directly.

Lighthouse makes "price friendly" UV lights. Other lights are available from other companies, but cost more.

(Note: I edited my post as I inadvertently called the longwave light a "blue light". The common term for the bulb is "black light").

Back in the hobby after a 25+ year absence. Currently with VERY few stamps, no albums, no tools, no supplies and LOTS of time! I love a challenge!!! LOL
01 May 2012
11:00:30am

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

I just soaked the paper off the FEW Machin's I have... and you want me to select a colour

Then again even if I had all the colours (unlikely) I doubt I could choose a favourite and have to agree with cjd1122.

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

I like the Lime Green and Sage Green.

alynlunt.com/

Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
22 Jul 2012
08:17:40am

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

I missed out keeping up with some threads a few weeks ago but had started to provide a link to this site that just about covers all the appropriate Machin Colors, by Deegam and Scott. The Deegam Colours are as announced by Royal Mail. The Scott list is an attempt to describe them by the catalog's own standards, or perhaps they are just a CWAG.
Here Robin Harris illustrates the 70+ official colors plus ten dual colors.


There was also a site that displayed over 400 + different color value Machins on several pages, but the link seems to have been withdrawn, and as far as I can see, I never saved a jpg of the scans.

That might be a good project for our next local stamp club bourse in the fall. It would probably require five or six scans if they are mounted shoulder to shoulder.
Perhaps even more if obvious shade varities are included.

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

Hi everyone;

My favorite is the 1sh6p Indigo (& Greenish Blue missing), it is a color missing error. I found one about 8 months ago. I found out that Feebay had one listed that sold for $265+ .

It looks really cool next to the one with both colors in my Great Britain Scott's Specialty album.

Happy sorting everyone
Ken Tall Pines

www.webstore.com/sto ...

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

I'm partial to the sea green and turquoise green/blue shades like the 17p and 81p from the color chart. Such peaceful, relaxing colors - reminds me of the ocean. Ahhhhhhhh

www.ebay.com/str/phi ...

They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -Benjamin Franklin
02 Jul 2014
07:46:32am

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

I don't have my catalog in hand, but this color is pleasing to me:

                                   

www.bobbybarnhart.ne ...

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

Argghhh, the colours, have just finished sorting last weeks soakings. Table full of colour and surprising how many are the same or almost the same shade. Found another forged 24p brown (sorry Chestnut, SG).

My favourite, probably the 31p Blue (Ultramarine)

malcolm197
28 Sep 2016
01:41:30am

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re: New game: What is your favorite color on a Great Britain Machin stamp?

This is interesting. Many of these alternative shades/colours were chosen to make cancellations more visible or to help staff identify the stamp in different types of artificial light. Eventually a standard pallette of reusable colours was chosen. When a stamp is withdrawn the colour is reused after a short period of disuse. The second and first class rate stamps are constant blue and red - although technical development does mean that the actual shade has changed over time, but recently the colour variation has ranged from slight to non-existent. This makes collecting such stamps less interesting although the security overprints have improved things.

As an aside you should note that many of the early decimal Machin colours are subject to variations in shade (which are not changelings).

The steel blue (14p and 17p) and 10p orange are particularly vulnerable, and also the intensity of colour in the Queen's head varies on many stamps.

Do not automatically write these off as changelings. If you get 100 stamps of a single value you will find a number which are identically different from standard. In my experience this does not happen with genuine changelings.

Conventionally this is ignored ( other than listed shades ). Although there in no monetary value in these they do make an interesting sideline.