Hong Kong Machin Definitives (1992 - 1997)

Your write up is an awesome reference.

I need to update my Steiner pages since they mostly follow Scott for these issues so will use SG numbering.

Scott ignores phosphor (something I like to collect) and find SG Concise puzzling on when it decides to list individual stamps from commemorative products (prestige booklets and souvenir sheets). For example, SG lists individual items from the 1994 History of Hong Kong but just assign an MS number to the many unique varieties of the $10 generated. I do not always agree with Scott but find their logic more consistent.

A start with SG organization.



Then will summarize all the special booklets and sheets.

Normally, SG lists stamps from stamp books, but not always those from miniature (souvenir) sheets. Often, the reason is that the latter have not been generally available. The $5 "A Stamp is Born" and many $10 stamps were issued in miniature sheets issued at stamp exhibitions.

My guess is you will find they were available at the exhibition and, maybe, drom the philatelic service, but not put on sale from post offices. The stamp books were on general sale from post offices or 7-Eleven stores.

I did learn that the HK Machins are still in the Deegam Handbook but now in the Archive folder. I had sent an email to Deegam (Hans) and got a quicj response. The summary in Deegam is very handy since it summarizes all the sources for each issue. You have to go to the actual file folder to see it.

The Daniel Tangri series was in 5 parts but a later addendum. I do not have part 5 and waiting for it.

Scott lists several of the litho stamps as photogravure (using the first issue dates to correlate) so sent a note to them on that.

NSK, your pages are a nice visual complement to the Tangri article.

I finished my Steiner-style customized pages. I followed SG. Steiner has spaces for all the souvenir sheets and panes from Prestige style booklets. It actually has spaces for 2 $5 S/S (an error).

Very nice.

Bill Steiner told me he was posting corrections for his pages for the 1992 HK Machin issue and saw he posted the changes. He removed the lithographed issues (ones from some of the later booklets) I noted were not explicitly listed in Scott. I assume Scott expects one to get the whole booklets that are listed in Scott but Scott has listed these as photogravure.

Bill said he gets lots of complaints from collectors that use Scott on including varieties on his pages not in Scott. This is the beauty of being able to create your own.

Thank you for referring to my work NSK - and quoting it so much! I wanted to say three things. First, I published a consolidated and updated version in the Hong Kong Philatelic Society journal 20 for 2016 - that's probably the best version to use. Second, I've now found a $1.90 booklet with missing security overprint. Third, I checked the last two miniature sheets and my versions definitely don't have identical perforations to earlier ones. At the time Ian De La Rue Browne checked as well. I wonder if you have found a variety! You checked the phosphor a on these more thoroughly than I did, and I'm glad that this series continues to interest people. Best wishes, Daniel.