Collecting By Engraver

@ stamp_nut
Thanks for pointing out the Fuchs/Falz typo.




Yes I have. Up to the mid fifties quite a few West German stamps
were engraved but by the late fifties offset dominated.
When I took a quick look at West German commemoratives between 1957 to 1964 I counted 55 stamps that were engraved and 119 were printed via offset.
I did not include definitives.

Staying with German engraved stamps here is the 1959
Beethoven souvenir sheet.

Hans-Joachim Fuchs engraved the 10pf and the 25pf

Egon Falz engraved the 15pf

Gerhard Schulz engraved the 20pf Beethoven

Harald Braband engraved the 40pf

Germany BRD Mi Block 2 Sc 804



When I first saw this SS in Linn's Weekly new issue section I
really wanted to have it.
So me and a friend went to downtown Toronto to one of the
numerous stamp stores to see if he had the sheets.
The dealer had some and I bought one for $2 as I recall which
was a a lot of money for a kid when you consider gas was 30c a gallon
or 7c a liter. A chocolate bar,cup of coffee, newspaper were all 10c.
And no sales tax yet in Ontario.
My friend actually liked the one with the pictorial cancel so he
bought that one for $2.50.
Even after I told him that mint always is worth more eventually.
How wrong I was. The cancelled sheet is always double the price
of MNH in the catalogues.

lithograving you're quite right, of course. 'Most' was an exaggeration. I did not actually count them. I'm busy at the moment, compiling my 'wants-list' for a major stamp fair here in Essen in May. I use the Michel online catalogue and simply ignored all issues not recess printed. So I had the 'feeling' that there were more. I should stick to facts and not impressions.

Yep, the Beethoven S/S has been a favourite of mine too. It's really odd. I used to collect Germany back in the 70s/80s and when I started looking for engraved stamps only recently, I had totally forgotten about the German issues. It was the post by Strider asking about German engravers that reminded me.

The German engraver Karl Wolf was born on April 28, 1894 in Chudenice near Klatovy (Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic). He received his artistic education at the technical school in Mikulášovice. Until the outbreak of the First World War, he worked in Znojmo and in the war as an engraver in Vienna in the cartographic office of the army. He then worked for the A. Haase printing company in Prague from 1919 to 1925, before moving to the Czechoslovak National Bank.

Like his German colleague Karl Seizinger he left the country after the Munich Agreement and before the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Hitler and went to Leipzig, where he worked from April 1, 1939 until his retirement, at the printing house Giesecke & Devrient, which later became the Security Printers of the GDR. During his time there he engraved many stamps of the GDR, most of which were unfortunately not recess printed. Karl Wolf died on September 27, 1966 in Leipzig.

Here are a few of Karl Wolf's engraved stamps that were printed in recess. btw these are not my scans. I've 'borrowed' the pics from elsewhere.

Michel 941/42, Leipzig Fair 1947, (Allied Occupation general issues). Copperplate engravings.



Michel GDR 676/77



Michel GDR 733/34

stamp_nut I'm glad that you mentioned Karl Wolf and Karl Seizinger, they were excellent engravers and led interesting lives.

It made me look back on this thread to page 44 where I showed some of Seizinger's work but all the Photobucket images
are gone but I still have them on my hard drive.

The engraved stamps of Czechoslovakia in the 1920s and up to the mid
Thirties did not have the name of the engraver inscribed in the frame
as became the custom later.

But the engravers found ingenious ways to include the initial
of their surname somewhere unobtrusively in the design area.

Here are some by the master engraver Karl Seizinger.
Seizinger who was born 1889 in Germany, died in the Neatherlands in 1978.
He engraved stamps for Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Croatia.

Here is a link to The Stamp Gallery of Czech and Slovak Graphic Art site which has an excellent
Karl Seizinger biography.

http://www.batz-hausen.de/seizeng.htm


Czechoslovakia

Scott 176





Scott 218




Scott 219




Scott 220





Scott 221

Here are a few more Karl Seizinger Czechoslovakian stamps
where he engraved his S somewhere in the design.
There are probably more but these are all I have.
Maybe someone else has some to show?

Scott 222




Scott 224



Scott 225




Scott 226




Scott 240




Scott C12

lithograving, wow, that is a great Website. Thank you for sharing the link to it. Seizinger was indeed a superb engraver. I shall definitely add his stamps to my wants-list.

Incidentally, how on earth did you manage to find his 'signature' on those stamps? Especially the Scott 222! Or the Scott 219, where he had cleverly made it part of the sidewalk. I would never have seen those.

And, just for something to smile about. After looking at that website and reading about Seizinger, I immediately took down my Michel Europe catalogue. It's an old one from 1958 where they crammed the whole of Europe, including Germany and all associated areas and whatnot, into one volume! Anyway, I turned to 'C' in the catalogue, expecting to find Czechoslovakia. Not there! I thought - what the hell?! How can Michel omit a whole country? I checked again. There was Bulgaria. And on the next page Denmark. No Czechoslovakia. I looked for the table of contents. There isn't one. Damn, what now? It took me a whole ten minutes to remember that the Germans spell that country's name differently. It starts with a 'T'. Duh, what a dummy I am.

I am slowly forming a specialised collection of the Senegal Elegance definitive stamps.

Type 1
Type 2

If anyone can supply a scan of the source image of the lady from which Pierre Gandon engraved the stamps then I would be most grateful.

Also, any background information to the issue that goes beyond the basic details found in a stamp catalogue would also be appreciated.

Thank you. GLENN

I am so happy to see this thread revived with fine scans from old as well as new contributors even if I myself lack proper equipment to do likewise.

lithograving - Welcome back - it's good to see you here again.

Let me note that the point of your arrow happens to actually hide the S in the detail of the 1.50 Kè value (Czechoslovakia Scott 219) while it happens to be misdirected in the image of the whole stamp leaving the letter clearly visible just below its tip, next to the outer circle of the CDS.

On the other hand, there is no engraved initial of Seizinger's in the 3 Kè value (Scott 222) unless you consider some S-like light areas found in the incisions representing the rock, usually just above the top of the figure 3 in the right-hand value tablet.

Another quick word about catalogues. Lithograving said on the previous page "at a certain point Michel chose to no longer list the engravers in their catalogs."

Well, my 2004 Michel Germany catalogue bought from ebay arrived today, and while it's excellent in its detail, it's after that certain point, and doesn't show the engravers' names. Does anyone know when they began to leave out the engravers? To be sure of getting that info, what's the date to look out for?

stamp_nut, yes that is funny about not finding Tschechoslowakei under "C" in the old Michel Europa Katalogs.
Similar to a collector used to using Scott or SG or Yvert&Tellier looking for Austria under A in a Michel.

Hi Florian

Great to see you on here again.
I was hoping that by posting something about
Czechoslovakia you would look in and comment.

I'm sure you are right about Scott 219.
The S in the sidewalk does not look like the way
he normally engraved his initial but that's
all I could find.
I looked at it again without the green arrow but
I still can't see it where you said it is.
Is it covered by the postmark?



Same with Scott 222.
The only S I can spot is what looks
like a white S in the rocks as I pointed out
in the post above.

Here is one more Czechoslovakian stamp where Karl Seizinger
in minute size engraved his initials.

Scott 161





Bohumil Heinz was another Czechoslovakian engraver who
included his initials in different places on the stamp.
Or as in the case of Scott 215 his surname in full.

Scott 199




Scott 202




Scott 215




The first letter looks like an R but I'm sure
its meant to be the H.
The E is faint but the I, N & Z
are quite clear.

A series issued in 1963 of Famous Yugoslavians
Scott 719-723
Designer:Bozidar Jakac
Engravers:Stanimar Babic & Tanasije Kranjajic

The ink on this stamp has bled a lot and appears to have been overinked. The "S" Florian is pointing out has spread making it look more like a blob but if you look closely you can see that it is actually an "S" where the ink has spread (my opinion only and I'm often wrong).

In the close-up, it is to the left of the squiggle in the pavement that looks a bit s-like and just touching the cds. It is the first blob above the border.

strider, I had the same experience when I bought new,
the Michel Nord -und Nordwesteuropa 2004/2005.

Wow was I disappointed when I found out that designers, engravers
and printers where no longer listed in the catalogue.

That's why my old, worn 1968 Michel Katalog Europa is invaluable.

Also from 1963...Republic of Chad
Mail Truck & Broussard Plane Scott C12
Engraver:Claude Haley