Counterfeit stamps sold as ‘discount postage’ are a multi-million-pound headache for Royal Mail but are a boon for collectors of modern GB definitives. When Royal Mail introduced new security features to the Machin definitives in 2009, the management must have believed this would prove a strong deterrent to counterfeiters. Instead, some denominations of Machins were counterfeited on an almost industrial scale. The rising face value of stamps, new technology that helped forgers and the rise of the internet as a means of distribution all contributed to the epidemic of counterfeiting.
THE PROBLEM OF COUNTERFEITING
So, from 2021, these ‘security Machins’ were superseded by barcoded, larger format Machins, beginning with a blue 2nd class Machin. Old, non-barcoded Machins were declared invalid as from 31 July 2023 but could be swapped out…
You're reading a preview of
Stamp Collector (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025