Questions Concerning Glossy Appearance Of Stamps

Like many collectors, I'm confused by the use in philately of terms such as calendered, chalked, coated, surfaced, and glazed. I reached a height of bewilderment earlier today when I read on a website about 19th century Swedish stamps printed on 'calendered post-glazed paper'!

Can I expose my ignorance by asking:

Are all these processes simply ways of giving stamps a glossier look?

If so, when did this start? In other words, what were the first stamps that were deliberately treated in order to make them look glossier?

If the intention was not simply aesthetic, what was the point of such processes? Presumably, the intention was to produce stamps with a degree of finish that could easily be counterfeited. Was that the real concern?

My catalogues sometimes list stamps that only exist as printed on glazed paper. I have copies of some of these stamps but the ones I own don't seem to have a particularly glossy appearance. Why not?

I own quite a few Hong Kong stamps that exist both on ordinary and glazed paper. But these stamps look glossy where the surface of the stamp has been printed on but not glossy where it hasn't. So are these stamps on glazed paper or not? If not, why glaze when you can get a glossy appearance just from the kinds of ink that have been used to print the stamp?

Last, does anyone know of any good resources for the study of such matters on the Internet?

I can't say anything about the Swedish stamps - but the Stanley Gibbons specialised catalogue for Austria & Hungary explains the varnish bars of 1901 as follows:

"The overprinting with bars of varnish was a protective device intended to hinder the cleaning and re-use of the stamps."

There are, I suspect, two issues here:

1. Making the stamps harder to counterfeit (same idea as watermarks, distinctive perforations like elliptical perfs, etc).

2. Making the stamps harder to re-use (like those damn monkey markers!).

And often the same thing doubles/doubled up for dealing with both concerns, e.g. the protective devices introduced last year by the UK for the commonest machins - hologram markings + those tabs + hard to remove adhesives..

Alas, unfortunately us poor stamp collectors often get caught up as innocent victims in the crossfire - but at the same time it leads to innovations - see the separate thread on GB Queen Victoria penny reds (or "penny browns" to describe their real colours).

Maybe Keijo's stamp collecting blog can help (her's a member of scf, based in Sweden's neighbour Finland, with a wide knowledge of many areas of stamps).

I can't find anything in a quick search of his blog (http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/), but you could take up his offer:

Thanks for the suggestion, David. I shall certainly take a look at Keijo's blog later on today.

jimjamtwo, the Introduction to the Gibbons Commonwealth catalogues (page xxiii this year) gives a pretty good introduction to chalk-surfaced and glazed papers.

I think you'll find your Hong Kong stamps that appear glazed on the printed areas only are on ordinary paper. The glazed papers give the glazed appearance all over: the 'glazed' appearance you're seeing in the printed areas is just the effect of the surface of the ink.

That's what I concluded, tonymacg. But doesn't that raise the question of why glaze at all? The stamps look pretty glossy anyway!

I can't speak for the Hong Kong stamps (apparently they were part of a wholesale switch to glazed paper by the Crown Agents at the time), but surfaced papers are usually used to give a better print quality. If you can find examples (better to use mint stamps) of stamps printed on ordinary and chalk-surfaced paper, you'll see a distinct improvement in the appearance of the chalk-surfaced printings. (The Australian George VI Robes high values are a good example. The 'thick' papers were chalk-surfaced; the 'thin' papers were ordinary, unsurfaced papers.)

The reason for using chalky stamp paper had nothing to do with aesthetics or
print quality but to prevent reuse of the stamp.
See this short article on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalky_paper

I don't think a hundred years ago countries were
too concerned what stamps looked like or gave a dam about the collector.
The post office departments were a main source of revenue which
had to be guarded and protected.

Ever heard of King George V, Lithograving?

Yes Tony I do believe I heard something a while back that he dabbled in stamps and probably had some influence with the Royal Mail.

I wonder if Franz Joseph influenced the Austro - Hungarian stamp
issuing policy. Maybe he liked his portrait on a chalky surface.

Calendering is the process of squishing paper
between ever finer gaps between two rollers,
or stronger tension/pressure if you will.

The example of "super calendered" paper is "Glassine"