Taiwan - Republic of China ATMs (8)

And yet again, history is repeated ...

On June 21st 2006, Chunghwa Post issued 2 souvenir-sheets dedicated to the well-known cartoon character, Winnie the Pooh, to stimulate an interest in philately by youngsters.
At same time the philatelic service published other multiple items more or less related to the issue, - a great piece of commercial thinking.
Up to this point, there are no great philatelic surprises - except that they decided to promote the Winnie the Pooh issue with the release of a new ATM !

The new paper is identical to this one issued in 2001, for the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall issue, but with a small difference: In each roll they overprinted a control code in red, consisting of 2 letters in the left lower corner of all the labels.
Each roll has a different code, (AA to BS), therefore there can only exist a maximum of 2000 ATMs with each code.

Initially it was expected that this paper variety would be available only in the temporary post office installed on the occasion of the Winnie the Pooh issue, but to ward off complaints from collectors – an unfortunate decision when one considers the events surrounding the ATM issues, they finally decided to overprint 45 rolls (90000 labels) and to distribute them on June 21st among some post offices fitted with Nagler or VarioSyST vending machines, all of them issuing the ATMs with the face value printed in black.

There exists ATMs with this new paper variety issued by the Nagler machines (left image, without control number in the right upper corner), VarioSyST 503 and VarioSyST 503a (2nd. generation).

A First Day Cover with an ATM issued by the machine VarioSyST 503 (number 019).

Because of the reduced printing, June 21st was the first and only day of this issue in many vending machines.

In the Zonghli post office, where the Winnie the Pooh issue was sold on the first day, they installed 2 VarioSyst 503a vending machines, numbers 057 and 058, which issued the ATMs in black.

But there also exists ATMs from these machines with the face value in red, issued prior to the exhibition. These ATMs were included in an unusual commemorative folder of the first day of issue of the Winnie the Pooh stamps.
For this special printing they kept 10 rolls (20000 labels), but the final printing is unknown.

	On this commemorative folder there are the 2 Winnie the Pooh souvenir-sheets, 2 cards with pictures related to the issue, that can be used to get small discounts in the online shop of Taiwan Post, 2 illustrated train tickets to be used only on June 21st and ... 2 sets of ATMs with the new paper variety and printing in red. A really strange mixture and combination ...

In short, another case of contempt for collectors that, of course, only benefits the Chunghwa Post profit, and indirectly, the profit for local dealers and collectors selling this avalanche of supposed rarities and varieties to ATM collectors all around the world.