Editor:Alastair Nixon, 7 Bramblegate, Edgcumbe Park, Crowthorne, Berks, RG45 6JA

Email:l: +44 (0) 1344 775378

Editorial

Another interesting set of news this month but the ‘Meter of the month’, shown above, probably comes top of the list! Like the ‘Refill Report’ last month, this example (ex Neopost IJ65 inscribed ‘SPCIMEN’) went through the post as live mail!

I have been fortunate to acquire this item but unfortunately it is a window envelope and the sender is unknown. Presumably, this was once a demonstration model but was then supplied to a customer in error. An earlier example, dated 26-02-01, has also been seen. It always amazes me what can be found - if you’re lucky!

I am still awaiting your views on whether the ‘Refill Report’ warrants catalogue status, and I guess this specimen example falls into the same category – so opinions please.

Just for the record, I have produced two ‘publications’ since last month which have now been forwarded to the ‘community’. The first is a reconstruction of a John Mann booklet dated November 1962 entitled ‘Parcel Post Meters of Great Britain’. The publication includes details of the use of machines from the following manufactures: T.I.M. -Ticket-Issue Machines

Ltd. (from 1947), Setright Registers Ltd. (from 1951), Westinghouse-Garrard Ticket Machines Ltd. (from 1947), Universal Postal Frankers Ltd. - now Pitney Bowes Ltd (from 1950) and The National Cash Register Co. Ltd. (from 1933). An example of the attractive Festival of Britain design (T.I.M) is shown above.

The second ‘publication’ is an Excel file in the form of a flowchart that attempts to facilitate the identification of ‘Design A’ meter franks - the first type of design from 1922.

I have always found the various catalogues very hard to understand when it comes to working out what a particular item is in my collection and the flowchart idea (with embedded macro text-box links) should make that task much easier.

The main news items this month include:

Pitney Bowes:DM 225/300 Software error on early machines.
Pitney Bowes:Separate series for DM 225 and DM300 machines?
Pitney Bowes:New Paragon machine series
AustraliaMatrix Coding

Latest Numbers

Below is a list of my ‘Latest Numbers’ as at 25th May 2001. Included in the list is a new series, PBP8 – see News Report on page 7-4. Please could I have updates for the next issue by 17th June, thanks.

Addressing Systems International

AlphaASA 9047009.04.01*

MinipostASM 8204906.04.01

Frama

Sensonic 21-2600FSC 21794509.05.01*

Sensonic 2000FSC 26042502.04.01

Francotyp-Postalia

EFS 3000EFS 39933313.02.01Static for 2 months

EFS 3000EFS 69703407.03.01Static for 2 months

T1000T 39950529.03.01

JetMailFJ039973308.03.01Static for 2 months

JetMailFJ053348203.05.01

Hasler

SmileHS 34115R25.04.01*

SmileHS 35692S03.05.01

300 SeriesHT 18927R20.02.01Static for 2 months

300 SeriesHT 08459S16.05.01*

Neopost

SM 22,264NE 1798126.04.01

5450, 54605NE 1591403.10.00Static for 6 months

8500, 8550/87508NE 4344027.03.01

SM 75,85,959NE 5079209.04.01

IJ25N110300004.05.01

IJ65N120130603.05.01*

Pitney Bowes

ParagonPBP 0409927.04.01*

“ “PBP 0994102.01.01Static for 2 months

Paragon?PBP 8008917.05.01See News Report

Personal PostPB23924023.04.01

DM 200, 250PB30233723.04.01

DM 225?PB37229106.03.01See News Report

DM 300?PB37334618.04.01See News Report

Post PerfectPB75233402.05.01

B921PB92763318.04.01

*These reports were kindly supplied by David Aspinwall.

News Report – Pitney Bowes

It is very satisfying to discover something new that has actually gone unnoticed for some time. Whilst updating the directory listings for the DM 225 / 300 machines the other day, I noticed something odd in the two columns of numbers to the left of the town-mark on some of the examples.

It is well known that the left-hand column contains the item number, but there is still much to be understood about the six digits in the right-hand column. The first digit is always ‘1’. The second, third and sixth digit are encrypted and believed to be a function of ‘item number’, ‘date’ and ‘meter value’. [As far as I know, the encryption formula has not been determined by us collectors.]

The remaining digits (the fourth and fifth) in the right hand column are machine dependent and the formula for calculating these has been given in the PMSC Newsletter Page 22/127 (Sept 1998). It appears that the DM 225 / 300 machines with a serial number less than or equal to PB370566 always have these two digits printed as zeros – as shown in the illustration below:

All machines with serial numbers up to PB370566 produce ‘00’ as the encrypted machine identifier.

It seems that the software error that caused this was later corrected as machines with serial numbers greater than or equal to PB370589 have the encrypted values similar to those on the Personal Post and Post Perfect machines.

It would be useful to try to narrow down the range in between these serial numbers to see when the error was corrected. Please would you therefore be on the look out for any serial numbers between PB370566 and PB370589. Of course, the affected machines may well be corrected when they are next serviced so the race is on to narrow-down the band!

Any reports of low-numbered machines with machine identifier digits other than ‘00’ would be welcome. Please note that the DM 200 / 250 machines (starting PB30) do not have this software error.

For those of you who have not seen the original PSMS article, an abbreviated summary of how to calculate the two digits concerned (called D2 and E2) is given below:

D2 is the remainder of (M+a+b+c+d+e+1)/11 and

E2 is the remainder of (4M+5a+6b+7c+8d+9e+2)/11

Where a to e are the digits of the 5-digit machine serial number and M=2 for PB2, M=7 for PB7and now M = 0 for both PB30 and normal PB37’s. Remainders of 10 count as 0.

There is another thing that I feel is worth reporting. A couple of months ago I noticed a huge jump in the PB37 series allocation – with numbers starting PB373. At the time I put it down to machines being randomly taken from stock, but from the way the numbers have been increasing, it now seems likely that the PB37 series actually has two sub-series running, one starting PB372 and the other starting PB373. I am guessing that the former is for DM 225 machines and the latter for DM300 machines. I have made this assumption in the latest numbers table, but of course this could be incorrect.

Overseas News - Australia

I have recently come across another interesting overseas development, this time from Australia. The illustration below shows a Pitney Bowes Post Perfect or Personal Post frank with a ‘Matrix Code’. Hopefully, I will be able to include some more examples of these security codes next month, space permitting. Meanwhile, if any further details are known (e.g. when they first appeared or what information the matrix contains), I would very much like to know. Note that column 2 starts with a ‘3’, not ‘1’ as in the UK.

Stop Press!

Just in today is a new frank from Pitney Bowes, PBP80089, which is presumably a Paragon machine variant. No further details are known at this stage.

Acknowledgements

Thanks this month for news and correspondence from the following:

David Aspinwall, Jack Peach, John Franey, Ray Woodward-Clarke and Ole Constantine.

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Meter NewsPage 7-1May 2001