Here for you is something extremely familiar that you may never see in this form again.
If you're my age you've looked at this particular portrait of the queen thousands upon thousands of times.
But this set of Machin Head portraits are as special as they come.
They come from sheets of imprimaturs.
Just two sheets were produced for each stamp.
The Postal Museum sold some duplicates to raise funds in 2013. The rest remain permanently in their archive.
So this could be your only chance to secure stamps that are:
- Extraordinarily scarce
- In unimpeachable condition
- Of historic importance
The familiarity of this image shouldn't detract from its beauty.
It's a genuine classic of 20th-century design. With a compelling creation story.
Used here to mark the historic moment that the UK decimalised its currency. A powerful signal of modernisation and change.
And these museum-quality final test prints are the most perfect, most pristine versions it's possible to own.
The set Includes a rare stamp that never made it into circulation.
This is a rare opportunity to secure this set, once part of the Royal Mail's national reference collection of stamps.
Great Britain 1970 10p-£1 'Decimal Machin Definitives'. SG 829/31bvar
The condition of these stamps is impossible to fault.
They are described as "superb unmounted" and have their full original gum.
They are imprimaturs, printed off as a final test to show a printing plate is in perfect condition.
Perforations aren't needed, these stamps were meant to be checked and then archived.
This full set includes 2 examples of the £1 stamp.
This was not issued to the public in 1971.
They are from the collection of the British Postal Museum and Archives. This is confirmed by a handstamp on the reverse of each stamp.
There is no doubting their provenance or their quality.
This is a landmark set of historically important British stamps at their very finest.
The original "Machin head" plaster cast, now in the Postal Museum, Clerkenwell, London.On June 22, 1966, a photographer called John Hedgecoe went to Buckingham Palace and took a photograph of the Queen.
It is probably - through the Machin heads - the most reproduced image in history.
Over 200 billion copies of it were sold. 320 billion copies made.
It circulated on stamps and coins for decades. Almost every person in the UK has one with them right now.
Hedgecoe, the founder of the photography department of the Royal College of Art, was a specialised and expert portrait photographer.
This assignment was unusual though.
A darkened profile, from which clay sculptor Arnold Machin could make his profile.
Hedgecoe took a number of shots of his monarch.
And she wrote a forceful "NO" under at least one, before selecting the image we see here with a circled "Good".
She is wearing the George IV State Diadem, a crown for which that king paid over £8,000.
He wore it at his coronation.
Queen Victoria is wearing it in her portrait on the Penny Black.
The royal approval (and disapproval) on 2 portraits of the Queen by John Hedgecoe. Now, our little-known heroic genius enters our story.
Arnold Machin began working in the Stoke on Trent potteries as a 14-year-old in 1925.
He was a man of principle.
He served time for his conscientious objection in World War II and once chained himself to a lamppost he considered too beautiful to remove.
And he became one of the UK's foremost artists in clay.
In this capacity he was invited to compete to produce the replacement for the Dorothy Wilding photographic portrait that had graced all of the stamps issued since Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.
Machin Head stamps were first sold to the public on June 5, 1967.
The design's creator had strong artistic opinions.
That's probably why his work endured through the entirety of Elizabeth's reign.
She vetoed several proposed replacements.
While this central image stayed the same, specialist Manchin Head collectors have catalogued more than 5,000 variations on the simple original.
A new currency
Your Machin Head set is historic.
It marks the end of a system of currency dating back probably to the end of the Roman occupation of Britain.
Decimalisation had been coming since the mid-19th century.
It wasn't announced until 1966.
And was delivered on Decimal Day on February 15, 1971.
On that day, the low-value Machin Decimals and the 10p high-value stamp were released.
The £1 from the old pre-decimal days remained in circulation.
This £1 was not issued with the rest of the new high value stamps in the summer of '71.
Buy this unique Machin Head set now for £15,000
What an extraordinary thing it would be to own an early, formative stage of this world-historic image.
Like a final sketch of the Mona Lisa, or a demo of She Loves You.
And only one reader of this mail can.
This Machin Head set is:
- Extremely rare
- In extraordinary condition
- Marking an important historic reform
With unshakeable provenance.
To which you can add our lifetime, money-back guarantee of authenticity.
And, after your purchase, you have 28 days to change your mind. No questions asked.
This is a rare and unusual opportunity.
