Is this a Boring Stamp ?

As well as being downright alarming as a rug ?

It was auction agent Tony Lancaster who sent me recently the internet link to the rug pictured at right. Apparently Tony had been out shopping for household products shaped like poodles (for such is his peculiarity) when he stumbled upon it by accident and without adequate warning. For those who cannot resist, and are possessed of a strong stomach, examples of this rug (also available in 'lime') are available through www.baseclassics.com. I know of no finer Christmas present for the Machin collector you love.

At the same time do not forget to mention to them that Charles Napper is even now working on the Colin Bowen and Kurt Feyrer collections that, together with other Machin consignments, will form the fine specialised section that will feature in our April Great Britain auction.

Machins are not always fondly regarded away from our shores. I recall a caption competition in Linn’s Stamp News a few years ago in which the winning entry underneath a stamp of Washington crossing the Delaware was “If we win, men, we’ll be sparing millions of future Americans those boring British Machin Heads !”

Sheer jealousy, of course, for what surer indication is there of the success of a stamp design than its longevity ? The problem is, though, that many see it is a cold fish of a stamp, the telling choice of a Queen who adopted willingly this lifeless symbol of her authority and no longer wished to look her people in the eye.

A full study of the semiotics of the design would be fascinating. The choice of Arnold Machin's plaster cast changed the public image of the monarch at a stroke. Elsewhere society was undergoing radical change yet Her Majesty, so alive in the Wilding photographic portrait, preferred to turn herself to stone.

Her head was turned away from us, she no longer engaged, she was 'apart'. Was this going to be a repeat of the first Elizabeth who retreated behind the mask and fully employed the remote, divine image of the monarch to sustain her ? In 1997 at the death of Princess Diana it was clear that the public felt that the Queen had indeed become separated from the emotional current of her country. She did not understand her people, she did not even want to speak to them.

From a philatelic point of view, however, it must be acknowledged that the Machin stamp is in fact the Penny Red of our times, our constant companion for well over 40 years already, providing a seemingly endless spectrum of variations and varieties for the collector.

No other single stamp design around the world can provide such a depth of potential for serious philatelic study and we have seen it attract a growing number of specialists looking for a 'real challenge'. Well over 200 billion stamps have been printed and there seem to be many more still to come. Gratifyingly for the entry-level collector, Machins can be a cheap area in which to make a start, much basic material being available for just face value or less. At the other end of the value table there are errors and varieties of the greatest rarity to be collected and there is always the possibility of a highly profitable 'discovery' to be made in a mixed auction lot or even at your local post office (if you still have one).

No wonder the Machin is strongly tipped to rise even further in value and popularity as a collecting area in the years to come.

After all, there are really no boring stamps in philately, just difficult ones.

JG