Gum Breaking Patterns

Gum breaking patterns are well known in German speaking countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It was in use for quite some time there!

Wave lines like:





Apart from these 3 countries, do we meet a similar gum breaking pattern???

I know about Argentina but it was only used in a few cases in 1925 and in 1957!

Any other contries or incidental cases????

In the same German speaking countries some emphasis has been made about whether these wavy lines are horizontal or vertical in respect to the image of the stamp. Some stamps are known having lines both horizontally or vertically.

And this is where it gets shady.

Just as with watermarks, you can NOT say that a horizontal watermark was used UNLESS you specify the direction of paper [the long axis of the paper wire in the paper machine]. The Germans call this "Papierlaufrichtung".

If you do not specify this direction all you are saying is that the readible watermark pattern is directly related to the readible image of a stamp. Or up side down or perpendicular, etc...

German speaking experts always assume that the wavy lines of their Gummiriffelung runs parallel to their Papierlaufrichtung. So when somebody tries to fake a German vertical Riffelung worth 5.000 dollars, they count on the fakeist not knowing about the direction of paper.... :)

The Germans may be right as long as it goes for the Deutsches Reich and Bund stamps with wavy lines. Although I am not too sure...

As to the Austrian stamps, there are 2 types of wavy lines: the first being parallel to the direction of paper, the second being orthogonal! The latter one in use since about 1953 till 1958.

What they had not discovered yet was a completely different pattern in use at the Austrian State Printers during 1955-1957:








Even clearly visible at the front of the stamps:

US used gum breakers during the mid-1900's. In general, they were much more widely spaced (~0.5-1cm) than the European counterparts of grilled and ridged gum.

Interesting read on the Austrian stamp! Thanks for posting the info and the pic!

k

The examples above are positioned by me in such a way that the direction of paper is vertical!

How to describe the stamps that have TWO orientations of such gum breaking pattern???

The "askew pattern" (schräge Riffelung as I called it in German) was probably used for the first time in 1955 for a commemorative stamp! And subsequently for quite some face values of the Folklore Costumes definitives.





at the left the orthogonal wavy lines pattern:



at the right the "askew" pattern:

Rein, thanks for adding another great instructive thread.

Since I don't think it's been mentioned yet on this thread I might
as well add that the purpose of gum breakers was to eliminate
or at least reduce the curling of stamp sheets.

Lithograving,

you are quite right!

But do not forget quite often the gummed stamp paper gets the gum broken by a simple knives device that produces not so regular sets of diagonal lines in two directions and more or less under an angle of 45 degrees... There is NO pattern, but the gum gets broken just as well.

What is typical of most Austrian stamps of the 1945-1958 period is that BOTH the pattern is there AND the above mentioned sets of diagonal lines..

Quite often you can not easily see the wavy lines pattern! It is there! And it almost seems as if it was applied to prevent the very paper from curling, NOT the gum!

Getting back to the German stamps, I think we should try to establish a gauge for the density of the wavy lines... It is not that easy and I think the number of lines per 5mm would do - if we manage to count them.

You may ask why?

I found out that German stamps have - at least that is my impression - had two different densities around 1935.

I am trying to get some feed-back from German collectors but so far only hot-shots get annoyed of my trying to put another technical matter on the agenda.