Collecting By Engraver

Florian, after reading your comments regarding the 5K PRAGA 68 airmail
I was curious to find out about the jokes on the design but sorry to
say I don't have it.
I have the 6 lower values but not that one.


Anyway, here is another Czechoslovakian stamp.


It has been mentioned before on this thread that Jindra Schmidt did not want the German surname on his work so he signed off as JINDRA S.


The great artist and stamp designer Max Švabinský (1873 - 1962) who collaborated with Schmidt on numerous stamps was opposed to this.

In 1972 as part of the annual Czechoslovakian Art series they included a Švabinský painting for his 10th death Anniversary and it was engraved by Schmidt.

Out of respect for his former colleague he finally for the first time used his full name.

Scott 1847



Here is a bit about the story but only in Czech and German.

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



Edited to replace missing Photobucket images.

In the following year on the 100th anniversary of the birth of
Max Švabinský Czechoslovakia issued 5 stamps showing some of
Švabinskýs work.

Again and for the last time Jindra Schmidt included his full name.

Designed & engraved : Jindra Schmidt

Printing : (20h and 60h) 1 colour offset, 1 colour engraving

(80h and 1K) 1 colour engraving, (2.60K ) multicolour engraving

Scott 1902 - 1906








Edited to replace missing Photobucket images.

Here are a couple from the 1972 Czechoslovakian Art set.

Engravers : Josef Hercik ( 1.20Kcs ) Milos Ondracek (1.80Kcs)

Printing : Multicolour engraving

Struggle of St. Ladislas with a Kuman nomad 14th Cent
Scott 1848




Midsummer Night's Dream by Josef Liesler
Scott 1850




Edited to replace missing Photobucket images.

lithograving - I appreciate your sustained, wide-ranging, keen, genuine and early interest in the qualities of your carefully selected specimens of stamps truly representative of the style of each noteworthy stamp creator: designer, engraver or printer.

Never satisfied with the cheapest hundred-a-packet indifferent chicken feed, sometimes even C.T.O. for juvenile beginners, you used to seek - just for your fullest enjoyment of the stamp art - either mint or postally used well-chosen items which, alas, can now be had for a fraction of the original price, inflation taken into account, no matter which country of issue in the 1960s - 1980s, be it Canada, Austria, Monaco or Czechoslovakia.

Only the engraved stamps of those years seem to attract more and more attention now that hand engraving has generally been and is being abandoned by the very few remaining faithfuls.

So now you are in a position to show your treasures in mint or very fine used condition to bring out their full aesthetic appeal. Thank you.

Re: Engraver Jindøich/Jindra (for short) Schmidt (1897 - 1984)

After the engraver Karel Seizinger (1889 – 1978) left Czechoslovakia for Yugoslavia late in 1938 and the engraver Bohumil Heinz (1894 - 1940) died on May 22, 1940, it was Jaroslav Goldschmied/Goldschmid/Goldšmid (1890 -1977) who began to engrave postage stamps again after his 1925 debut engraving of the President Masaryk definitives from a line-drawing by Prof. Max Švabinský (1873 - 1962).

Jaroslav Goldschmied was a skilful engraver but he depended for detailed line-drawings of designs to be engraved either on designers or on other engravers, such as Jindra Schmidt, who was employed as an engraver of banknotes.

Jindra Schmidt only engraved his first stamp in 1943, for Böhmen und Mähren, featuring Hitler at a window of Prague Castle looking out on Prague on his first and only visit to the city on March 16th, 1939 immediately after the German occupation of what remained of the pre-Munich Czechoslovak Republic.

The question whether Jindra Schmidt engraved any of the 1942 Hitler definitives for Böhmen und Mähren or the 1944 St. Vitus' Cathedral stamps is difficult to settle as authoritative catalogues are often in conflict and official sources remain silent. The fact remains that he will have done the detailed line-drawings of all the designs for the engraver, either Jaroslav Goldschmied or himself. However I seem to discern a minute G in the engraving of the 1944 St. Vitus' Cathedral stamps, which was the way Jaroslav Goldschmied signed his engravings.

Jindra Schmidt signed his above-mentioned first stamps of 1943 J.Š., not J.S. Asked in 1973 why he chose to sign it like this, he told me he wanted to point out he was Czech, not German. Let me add that surnames of German origin often appeared in several spellings in Czech parish registers (see Goldschmied's name above appearing on stamps in all the three forms).

This appears to be the reason why he began to sign his stamps as Jindra S. in 1946 although his 1945 Masaryk – Štefánik – Beneš definitives were signed in full: Jindra Schmidt.

The engraving of Max Švabinský's Sokol Display 1948 design for the Scott 343 – 345 set (see lithograving's post of 01/16/2012 on p. 57) won Jindra Schmidt a reputation with this designer of pre-war fame, so Jindra Schmidt became Prof. Max Švabinský's favourite engraver.

Yes Florian the stamps (countries) I collected were purely for their eye appeal never for how much they would be worth in the distant future.

Seems like many so called collectors nowadays care more about what their stamps are worth than any enjoyment they get out of just plain looking at that stamp.
For instance on this forum I would say that 75% of the threads are about selling stamps or what they are worth or what a forum member paid or sold a particular item for.
Do these people even look really look at their stamps?
But like I said before, "To each their own!"


Even though I bought a few of the Czechoslovakian stamps most were in my grandfathers collection and some of the used ones were off letters from a time when I corresponded with a young lady from Brno.





Very true. One of the worst offenders is Austria. For a country which had some of the best engravers and printing facilities in the world to just give it up is inexcusable.
Many of their definitives are now printed in the Netherlands by Enschede mainly because they print stamps cheaper than the State Printer.
The Austrian State printer has come up with a kind of replacement called Etch-Art but obviously it's not really
engraving.

See a thread about Etch Art here

http://goscf.com/t/28830&SearchTerm...ian,etch,art


I often wonder if stamp collecting will even survive in this age of constant change but if it does I believe it will in no small part because of these beautifully engraved stamps.








We are unbelievable lucky here on SCF to have a person post here that actually knew the master engraver Jindra Schmidt.
In my opinion one of the most prolific and best engravers ever.

Thank you Florian.


Martin

Here are the Bohemia and Moravia St. Vitus Cathedral stamps mentioned by Florian previously.

In the 1991/92 Michel Deutschland J. Schmidt is listed
as both designer and engraver.

Scott 88 - 89






This detail shows the excellent work that went into this engraving.




These blocks show the empty spaces in the sheet which frequently
occur on Czech sheets from this era and also pre war. (Leerfelder in German.)





Edited to replace missing Photobucket images.

To quote Florian





On February 1, 1945 the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia issued it's last stamp.

It is similar to the defintives of 1942 except the inscription
on top now reads Grossdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich).
The irony of that re designation was that the Reich was actually shrinking quite fast and imploding.



Designer : J. Schmidt

Engraver : J. Goldschmied

Scott 90



Notice the horizontal gum breaks which are visible on the block.
Also the poor perforations caused by worn/dull pins due to wartime
shortages.



Edited to replace missing Photobucket images.

lithograving - The engraving of St. Vitus´ Cathedral (Bohemia and Moravia Scott 88 - 89) is attributed to Jindra Schmidt in authoritative catalogues but I seem to discern a very tiny G next to the border just above the letter B in BÖHMEN ... Just try to post this section of the 2.50 K value where the engraving seems to stand out sharp in the same resolution as your detail of the cathedral.

G was the mark used by Jaroslav Goldschmied for his engravings.

However if the mark read S, the engraving would be Jindra Schmidt's, who used an S to sign the 1946 small-format airmails for the first time while the large-format ones of the same set were done by Jaroslav Goldschmied.

lithograving - The engraver pictured Hitler (Scott 90) as a most vulgar type. Just look at the way he dealt with his hair, his hypnotic hard stare ...

This was un unflattering portrait and only Hitler and his hypnotised followers might have liked it.

It was Hitler, Heydrich, Karl Hermann Frank and suchlike who had all the say in the Protektorat and heaven help those unwilling to comply. Still, there were people who treated Heydrich like a rabid dog as he deserved.

As it happens, all of this history has been illustrated with stamps.

lithograving - Mine were just single encounters with postage stamp engravers on social occasions offered to stamp collectors who were given the opportunity to ask a question.

I don't think that this was a very complimentary representation of Stalin either.
Those vacant eyes and that Cheshire Cat grin.
I don't think Uncle Joe would have been amused by it if he saw it.

Designed and Engraved : Jan Mracek


Czechoslovakia

Scott 399

Issued in "honour" of Stalin's 70th Birthday.




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Here is another Czechoslovakian stamp showing Stalin and Klement Gottwald (President of the puppet state CSSR) for the 30th Anniverasry of the founding of the Czech Commie Party.
Both died 2 years later in march 1953

There certainly is a lot of history in stamps.


Engraver : Jindra Schmidt

Scott 455 1951



Sorry for the poor copy but the paper is very low quality and the
the worn pins in the perforating machine caused messy perfs.
This seems to be standard for Czech stamps well into the
the sixties especially the paper.


Edited to replace missing Photobucket images.

Here are 3 examples of the 1945-1947 Czechoslovakian defintives
showing Masaryk – Štefánik – Beneš .

As Florian mentioned Jindra Schmidt did show his full name on a stamp,
last time almost 30 years before.


Czechoslovakia
Scott 294





Scott 294A



Scott 295A




Scott 297A




Scott 300



Edited to replace missing Photobucket images.

The stamp commemorates the treaty of Entente between the Benes
government in exile and the Soviet Union.

Every time I look at that stamp I have to laugh.
To me it looks like the Russian (Soviet) guy is grabbing the hammer to whack the Czech.
The engraving is quite poor and definitely one of Schmidt's worst.
The stamp looks like typical communist propaganda but again
it's part of history.

Engraver : Jindra Schmidt


Czechoslovakia
Scott 369



Edited to replace missing Photobucket images.