Machin Definitives: The Longest-Serving Design

Recognising a Machin is straightforward. It shows the sculpted profile of Queen Elizabeth II, facing left, on a plain single-colour background with the denomination and no country name. If a British definitive shows that profile rather than a pictorial scene, it is a Machin. That single, unchanging image is what makes the design so familiar, and what makes the field beneath it so deep. Our guide to identifying a Machin explains recognition in full.

Behind the one familiar portrait lies one of the largest and most studied fields in all philately. The same design exists in a vast range of versions, distinguished by the value and its colour, the number and position of phosphor bands, the paper and gum, and the printer and process, differences often invisible to the untrained eye. Collectors devote whole collections to the Machins alone, and two stamps that look identical can be quite different, and differently valued. Our guide to identifying a Machin and our Machin value guide explain why the exact variety matters so much.

Most Machins are common and worth little, the everyday stamps of recent decades, while a few specific printings, early issues and genuine errors are valuable, sometimes highly so. The exact variety, not the design, decides it, which is why the field rewards careful study. Our GB Machin stamp values guide explains which Machins carry a premium and why, and how to tell an ordinary one from a scarce one.