French Government Printer, Multicoloured Engraved Stamps  

 

Hello,

Beautiful stamps. Now I have to show you an intaglio press 3 colors "Chambon".




And this schematic drawing :





Ink rollers were cut by hand. They gave their ink in the correct location on the stamp. For the famous french "camaieu", the fourth color, two rolls gave their ink at the same place.

@BC

That French Polynesia is a perfect example of what was achieved
on the TD3 Chambon press.
Although they hadn't yet perfected colour separation looks like.

Apropos the painting itself, another one of Paul Gauguin's
masterpieces.

But when one compares the stamp with the actual painting
then it's obvious that no matter how good the engraver
cut the die or how well it was printed there is just no comparison.

In my opinion offset/litho or photogravure lend themselves much
better for printing paintings on stamps.

I believe that the Austrian State Printer achieved more realistic
results with one colour (engraved) and multicolour photogravure
when it comes to portraying paintings on stamps.




PS Have you seen the movie in which Kirk Douglas plays van Gogh
and Anthony Quinn acts like I imagine Gauguin was in real life?
I wish there were still actors like that around.

Papy24

Many thanks for those images, great stuff, is that mid to
late sixties going by the hair on the young fellow at the back
of the press.
Is that you by any chance?

The T.D.3 looks a lot smaller than the T.D.6.

You said:




Was that the same also for the TD6 ?


I can't seem to make out hardly any of the writing
on the schematic drawing pic.
Is there any chance you might post a clearer image?

Hello Lithograving,

That is not me at the back in 1972. I worked a little on this press. It is really smaller than TD6.

Ink rollers are cut as the same way for TD3 or TD6.

I can't do better for the schematic drawing, sorry.

Papy24,
I marked on your pic of the Chambon T.D. 6 press
what I thought were some of the stations as the paper passes
through and some with just a question mark.

Would you look at this and correct where I was wrong
and fill in the missing?

1/ TD REPORT ?
/2 TD DIRECTE ?
3/ HOT AIR DRYER ?
4/ PLATEN PERFORATOR ?
5/ ?
6/ ?
7/ ?
8/ ?

Lithograving,

You are not right, sorry.

First : 2 - TD report
2nd : 1 - TD direct
3rd : 3 - Infra-red dryer
4th : 4 - cooler paper
5th : 5 - Platen perforateur (comb perforation-three sides)
6 - nothing
6th : 7 - phosphorescent strips
7th : 8 - Number sheet inkjet or typography number

If you want : http://blog-impressions-timbrees.bl...ouleurs.html

Papy24

Thank you for clearing up my errors and filling in the
missing stations.

Especially now that I've seen those pics of the Chambon press on your
blog it all falls in place.

Since I am I machine designer (in the plywood industry), I find this thread and the information on Papy's blog fascinating. My rusty french is better than Google translate . LOL

I can't seem to find any reference dates as to when the presses went into use. It would be most interesting to find the earliest stamps on the 3 colour and on the 6 colour.

Hi BC

According to this website http://www.dieproofs.it/english/tip...mpa_eng.html
the first French stamps printed on a T.D 3 press was in 1939 and the first T.D. 6 were issued in 1960.

When I first saw this stamp and some of the other
French Art stamps from the early sixties I was blown away.

I had never seen stamps like that before, they were just
a pleasure to look at.
I didn't know or care about printing or T.D. 3 or 6 presses but
I knew basically what an engraved stamp looked like compared
to one printed via photogravure.
Therefore to me these stamps had the appearance of a combination
print, recess with photogravure.
Now I know otherwise but to me these solid red and
beige and yellow colours don't look like traditional engraving.

I have to admit it was fun being a stamp collector in those days,
always looking forward to new issues of the countries
I collected or could afford.


France Scott 1116 1965

Thanks Litho. And those scans are awesome!

Hello,

Most awesome is the work of the engraver for the two dies. Very nice result.

Hello Lithograving,

I just want to clarify. In France, the first stamp in rotary intaglio was printed on July 18, 1929, La Rochelle. The first in 3 colors printed on March 24, 1939, Red-Cross. And the first TD6, November 14, 1960.

I don't know for the other countries.

lithograving - Thank you very much for starting this thread. After your usual sabbatical, it is great to have you back again on the forum with your splendid scans showing so much detail, able to explain to Papy24 what have been the problems we have been grappling with here before.

(By the way, did you notice you had been put forward, by an admirer of your fine work with the scanner, as one of five possible candidates for a prize in the October 2014 nominations on another forum, four years(!) after you had left it? No surprise at all in view of what you had left behind you there! Congratulations just the same as well as thanks for the magic of your detailed images!)


Now to the point I had in mind: Do you think you could assemble here the image of your Les tres riches heures du duc de Berry stamp from
http://goscf.com/t/37395&whichpage=1 together with the detail of it from http://goscf.com/t/37395&whichpage=2
in order to make it possible for us to compare both, say, with http://www.wikitimbres.fr/timbres/1...duc-de-berry so that we could ask Papy24 whether it is possible for the colours of the indirect recess to be out of register with one another as they look in your example of the stamp as different from the one shown by wikitimbres? I mean the red proving to be much more out of register than the blue or the yellow.

Could he explain what went wrong here? Comparing my example of the stamp with yours I almost came to believe yours was a reject having escaped inspection while mine could have been an indirect recess plate redone to replace the faulty one.

Florian, here are the images for the Les tres riches heures du duc de Berry stamp as you requested.


France Scott 1115





NOTE: I was unable to retrieve the wikitimbres image