Stamp Coils have been produced since the early 20th century, however, this article is concerned only with those produced using the Machin Head.

There are two types of coil:

• Multi-Value Coils
• Single Value Coils

Both are discussed below.

 

Multi-Value Coils

 

Introduction

Multi-Value Machin Head Coils were first introduced in 1968 and just one issue was produced until decimalisation came about in 1971. 12 different coil values were issued between 1971 and the last to be produced in 1995.

Simple then - 12 varieties to collect. Wrong. Nothing is ever that simple in the Philatelic world. Stanley Gibbons Specialised lists 25 different variety strips (not including errors on individual stamps within the strip), and Deegam devotes 5 A4 pages of listing just for the decimal issues in Appendix 1 of his handbook.

Simplified

We will start this with the easy "simplified" table below and then dig deeper into the "specialised" issues. The good news is that if you want to collect only the simplified set, the total cost should be less than £15 for MNH and a similar amount for a good USED set.

Value	First Issued	PO Ref	SG Ref	Strip Format	Example
5p	15.02.1971	G1/G2	UMC1/4	2p/½p/½p/1p/1p
10p	03.09.1975	G3	UMC5/6	6p/2p/1p/½p/½p
10p	14.12.1997	G4	UMC7	7p/1p/1p/½p/½p
10p	16.01.1980	G5	UMC8	8p/1p/1p +2 labels
11½p	12.06.1981	RD1	UMC9	2½p/3p/3p/3p
12½p	30.12.1981	RD2	UMC10	½p/4p/4p/4p
13p	14.08.1984	RD3	UMC11/12	1p/4p/4p/4p
14p	05.09.1988	RD4	UMC13	2p/4p/4p/4p
15p	10.10.1989	RD5	UMC14	4p/4p/4p/3p
17p	27.11.1990	RD6	UMC15	4p/4p/4p/5p
18p	01.10.1991	RD7	UMC16	5p/5p/4p/4p
19p	31.01.1995	RD8	UMC17	5p/5p/5p/4p

Some notes about the above table:

• The only difference between the PO notation G1 and G2 is that G1 was issued on a roll of 300 strips and G2 on a roll of 600 strips.
• The above table takes no account of different gums, papers, phosphor variants, or error strips - these will be discussed later.
• The "RD" numbers aren't official Post Office denominators, they were invented by collectors to differentiate the issues as these were printed specifically for Readers Digest but were also available from the Philatelic Bureau.
• The UMCxx numbers are taken from the SG Specialised Catalogue.

TO BE CONTINUED