Varnish is just that. Varnish, like in furniture. But in printing it's used to highlight areas. It creates a shiney surface (like on your dining room table) that in everyday printing helps to enhance colours and make areas stand out. On stamps it was used to prevent reused of stamps. The idea was to prevent people from washing the cancel off the stamps, but proved of little value. Austria used varnish bars until about 1905. If you tilt the stamp toward a light you will see the refraction of the light off the bars. That is assuming the varnish is there.
Thank You James, I did read about the varnish bars elsewhere and had wondered about them.I did tilt the stamp under light and did not see anything that looked like a sheen so am assuming this one is the kind without varnish.
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Posted 05/24/2012 6:24 pm
