Nederland – Netherlands 2013 King Willem-Alexander

Design

On 28 January 2013, Queen Beatrix announced she would abdicate on Queen's Day – the birthday of her mother -, 30 April 2013. Her son, Willem-Alexander was inaugurated as king of the Netherlands on 30 April 2013.

The Dutch postal company, PostNL, invited four artists to submit designs for new permanent stamps. All artists received the same brief from PostNL. PostNL chose the designs submitted by Studio Job of Antwerpen, Belgium. The design was the work of co-owners Job Smeets from Belgium and Nynke Tynagel of the Netherlands. They used a photograph of the King by Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra.


King Willem-Alexander pemanent series design (2013)

The stamps show a full-face portrait of the King. The word 'NEDERLAND' appears in a deeper colour than that of the stamp. All stamps have a small horizontal and vertical black line set at an angle of 90 degrees at the top left corner. They, further have a crown in the bottom left corner and year in the top right corner printed in what PostNL calls 'metallic' colour. The number of basic weight steps for letters that the stamp covers is reversed out of the background in the lower right corner.

The postzegel.nl site reproduces an article first published by PostNL that includes an explanation by the stamps' designers. According to the designers, the design builds on the tradition of the "crisp and transparent" portrait of King William III on the first Dutch stamps of 1852. These stamps were based on a cameo of King William III. At the same time, it departs from the 1852 stamps by adding depth to the portrait. The designers added the depth by digitally 'sculpting' the portrait of the King based on Rineke Dijkstra's photograph layer-by-layer. This created an ageless image from which it is difficult to ascertain the King's age and gave the portrait a three-dimensional appearance.

The King is depicted 'en face' to lent him the appearance of a more accessible and sympathetic person and give the portrait a modern appearance. In an interview for Dutch television, Willem-Alexander had remarked he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his grandmother, Queen Juliana, rather than in those of his mother, Queen Beatrix. Queen Juliana very much disliked pump and circumstance. She, often, was described as 'your granny.' Contrary to her mother, Queen Beatrix was known for her formalism. The first series of permanent stamps depicting Queen Juliana also depicted the monarch 'en face.' Because the stamps printed in photogravure lacked quality in the details of the portrait, the series was soon replaced by one depicting Queen Juliana 'en profil.'

The relieve of the portrait is mirrored by the choice for the 'Avenir' letter type used for the typographic elements. The information provided by PostNL quotes Nynke Tynagel stating the typography has been inspired by inscriptions carved into stone that breaks the letters into parts of shadow and light. The thin lines of shadow that appear when looking at letters cut in relieve resemble a light letter with vertical and horizontal lines that differ in thickness.

The light blue and light red colours of the national stamps are another coincidence with the first Dutch stamps of 1852. The light grey of the third stamp, however, has little in common with the orange of the 15 cent stamp of 1852. The gradation in the background colours were intended as 'an ode' to the numeral stamps designed by Wim Crouwel that were current from 1976 until 2001.

Phosphorescence

The stamps turn violet under a long-wave uv lamp, except for an L-shaped phosphor tagging that luminesces greenish yellow. This indicates they were printed on paper without a fluorescent coating.

The L-shaped phosphor tagging appears at the left and bottom edge of the red and blue stamps. On the grey stamp, the tagging appears to the right of the 'priority label,' i.e., to the left and bottom of the grey area. It has a greenish yellow afterglow.

The crown in the lower left is pretty hard to see.
Since it's almost invisible then what's the purpose?

I shall come to the crown later.
The year at the top right, also, is very difficult to see.

The interview does not go into the reason for printing the crown in metallic ink. I do think there is some indication as to the reason. The crown is not the Dutch royal crown. It is symbolic. The crown symbolises the monarchy. As I wrote, Willem-Alexander has said he wanted to be more like his grandmother than his mother as monarch. His grandmother had opposed being depicted on stamps wearing a crown.

I think - and I am speculating - the crown was printed in metallic ink so it would identify the portrait as that of a monarch, whilst the portrait itself is that of an "accessible and sympathetic person" rather than a 'regal' person. It is like a subtle hint.

I think it is a beautiful design. I hope some of my family will use them on their letters to me


Peter

If they do, it, probably, will be the grey one. That one, however, you do not see in many outlets. My local supermarket sells the 2014 Delft Blue Dutch symbols that, still, are printed. It would be a challenge to find € 0.64 in stamps that could make up the gap between the blue and grey one. However, a red one, or two blue ones. But then they overpay by 37 cents.

On the positive side: even if they only use the grey ones, there are 20 different of them.

I don't like the definitive series (here we call them basic) in which all the stamps are the same and only change the color.
This series less so because the same stamps also change the year.
Crown and year look better in this one.

You picked an interesting one. It had a change in the design. I shall come back to that one later on.
The visibility of the metallic ink has been quite variable through the years. And, usually, very good on publicity photos of the stamps.

The stamps are sold either as a card of five (Domestic 2 and International) or ten (Domestic 1) stamps.

The cards show the logo of PostNL in black. They, further, have tables explaining how to use the stamps for the first two weight steps. Above the tables on the cards with stamps for domestic mail appear the words "Sending mail within the Netherlands" in Dutch. On the card with international stamps, the caption reads "Sending mail to the exterior."

Al cards include Dutch texts reading "For further information consult www.postnl.nl" and the 2013 PostNL copyright notice followed by an article number. The numbers are 336701 for the card of ten domestic single weight-step stamps, 336702 for the card of five domestic double weight-step stamps, and 336703 for the card of five international single weight-step stamps,



All cards show the four colour cylinder numbers preceded by a 'W.' Collectors of British stamps, and Machins in particular, will recognise these as identifying Walsall Security Printers as the printers of the stamps. Walsall specialises in gravure stamp printing. The orange cylinder on the two cards with domestic stamps was only used for the 'rates tables.' All four colours were used to print the international stamps: the blue used for the rates table was also used to print the 'priority' label that is part of the stamp.

The cards with international stamps are a source for two varieties of the international stamp.

Back on SCM after a quite-long hiatus due mainly to health issues. Looking forward to catching up on cool threads!




This comment illustrates the great and vast diversity in our hobby! I ONLY collective definitive/basic/regular issues, with Officials and Dues thrown in (which generally look like regular stamps!). I love displaying long sets with many colors in my books, as well as multiple different types of varieties such as papers, shades (tones), perfs, watermarks, dies/minor design changes, and of course......... dates!!

Of course, date changes are fairly new to philately going back to perhaps the 1970s. What's interesting too is that any collector of "early period" stamps, however one defines that, is mainly a definitives collector as the vast majority of stamps issued before 1900 were definitives/regulars.

Some modern definitives have an insane number of date-imprint varieties, for example the Seychelles 1977-1991 set has a least 27 such varieties! Later Seychelles definitives issued in 1996 and 2003 also have a large number of date-imprint varieties.

Singapore issued a set in 2007 dedicated to depictions of local wildlife. There are more than 50 date-imprint varieties in this set! Talk about the thrill of the chase- completing these sets with all imprint varieties is VERY difficult as most of the stamps were not issued in sets. You have to find them one at a time.

On a final note, before becoming ill I had developed a great interest in what I call the "small format" definitives of Yugoslavia. These are definitives that, for my purposes, I include starting with Scott 1243-51 issued in 1975-77 and continuing to Scott 2575-77 issued in 2002. During this 48 year period, Yugoslavia issued hundreds of these small definitives along with a huge number of perf, surcharge, and date varieties. I'm sure a look into Michel will reveal many more varieties than listed in Scott.

But, back on point to the original post, while I may not collect these Netherlands definitives they are a reminder to celebrate all our differences in terms of what we collect.

And even there you can stretch that definition. Spanish stamps changed their dates in the 1850s. But they also changed their designs.
However, the oldest example of stamps that changed the year only in the design are the 1924 and 1925 British Empire Exhibition stamps. Those were commemoratives.

With their year and source codes, or lack thereof, the British non-value-indicated stamps have around hundred combinations for the basic first and second-class stamps.

I collect many long and definitive series: flowers from Germany, flowers from Argentina, birds from Buzin, animals from Canada, art from France, butterflies from Australia, australian birds, etc, etc, but none with all the same motifs, like the Asoka column from India nor those of the leading character of so many countries that are repeated over and over again with different values #8203;#8203;or colors, tire me.
I even collect the Latvian shields, but one of each, without taking microprints into account.
There are countless beautiful things in this world and 360º to show them, I prefer them before the same Lord dozens of times in the same position.

Roberto, point well taken. I actually collect many similar definitives, especially those from BC. Many of the KGVI definitives depict nature or other scenes of local interest (Jamaica, Montserrat, Nigeria high values, etc). There are also some great sets from QE2, especially first sets from Ascension, Falkland, Tristan, Malaya, Gibraltar, etc. I especially like the engraved ones.

Returning to the subject of the thread!

The 'metallic' printing of the crown at bottom left and year at top right are not always easy to see and even harder to show in a scan.



The grey stamps inscribed 'INTERNATIONAAL' come in four varieties. Two of these are easy to see. The reason is that the kis die-cut 'perforations' between stamps and the primary colour is printed over the perforations (see the red arrows added to above image).

At the top and bottom of the block of stamps, the grey printing infringes on the matrix paper. On the second and third stamps in each row, the printing from the adjoining stamp to the left infringes on simulated 'PRIORITY' label. The varieties are catalogued as having a grey bar to the left of the stamp.

Since the printing of the primary colour is deeper at the top than at the bottom, stamps from the top row will show a dark bar over the 'perforations' at the bottom of the stamp. Consequently, out of every block, for three stamps it is possible to identify from which position in the block it came.