Last Wincor Post & Go safely preserved at BPMA

As reported yesterday, Wincor Post and Go units are now all history for Post Office Ltd. However on a happier note the last operational kiosk – that from the WH Smith branch at Swiss Cottage, was today removed to the BPMA store for preservation for decades to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A fitting place for an important part of our Postal Heritage.

 

 

 

BPMA 1st Class on 2nd Class Error-Not a real swap (sic)

The BPMA – 80th Anniversary of Inland Airmail -1st Class on 2nd Class Reel ERROR

The BPMA are currently marking the ’80th Anniversary of Inland Airmail’ (between 20th August and 20th October 2014) with a special overprint on their A001 Post & Go machine. The 1st and 2nd Class stamps carry an updated ‘overprint’ which includes a ‘Inland Airmail 1934’ plus an ‘Inland Airmail’ logo. So far , A001 has been vending second class Machin Stamps (bright blue – year code MAI2) from one roll and first class Machin Stamps (olive brown – both no year code ‘MAIL’ and year code MAI3 have been available) from the other. Initially the initial configuration was to vend a second class collectors strip of six consisting of 3x2nd Letter and 3x2nd Large but this was available for a few days only. Subsequently, the machine software was modified to vend just a strip two – 2nd and 2nd Large.

New Error

As part of this and subsequent software modifications a further ‘incorrect’ setting arose – known as a ‘Carousel error’- where incorrect stamps are added to the ‘Carousel’ that customers select to purchase their stamps. In this case those stamps that are added to the 2nd Class carousel in error (the 1st Class Letter and 1st Class Large Letter Stamps) meant that they were incorrectly dispensed from the 2nd Class reel – but all other purchases were unaffected. This meant that many collectors had visited the BMPA machine, purchased their Collectors Strips (which would have been printed normally) not noticing this error for the many days it had existed. It is known that a dealer from Germany and one from the Netherlands who purchased single stamps had not noticed the error until later as all of their collectors strips had been printed in the correct way on the correct reels . As this is not a ‘reel’ swap then only 1st class and 1st Class Large values exist printed in this way and ‘collectors Pairs’ of differing values cannot exist (as they would have been printed normally). So far only single stamps have appeared on Ebay although multiples of the same value could exist as well . http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/postagelabelsuk/

B.P.M.A goes live with Hytech next generation Post & Go ‘A1’ machine.

The BPMA have announced the successful go-live of the installation  of Machine A1 (Previoulsy seen at Spring Stampex this year ) in the foyer of Freeling House , Phoenix Place, London, WC1.

http://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/we-have-a-post-go-machine/

The machine was initially  loaded with ‘Xmas Robins’ and Machins. It is expected that the robins will be replaced by the Union Flag in January and then 2nd Class in February.

The overprint in use in both cases is ‘The B.P.M.A.’.