Austrian Stamp Printing Techniques

On page 67 of the Collecting by Engravers thread Florian
posted this about the techniques used to print Austrian engraved
stamps.

It is such a rare insight in how they achieved making such exquisitely engraved stamps that I figured it would be
proper to re post it here again.

Fans of Austrian hand-engraved stamps often marvel at their elaborate engravings. What facilitated the admirable fineness of lines in intaglio printed stamps produced by the Austrian State Printing Office were special processes employed in their production.

First, the model of the design in detailed line drawing eight times (not six times - as usual elsewhere) the size of the stamp was etched into a zinc plate from which it was transferred by means of a pantograph onto a soft steel plate covered with etching ground.

Second, shallow grooves were etched into the steel plate to serve as guidelines for the master engraver who deepened them and gave them definite shape, often incising only the vignette and leaving the rest of the job to lettering and frame engravers.

Third, the finished steel plate (the die) needed no tempering, no copying under enormous pressure to a transfer roll, it was but impressed into a thin lead plate from which it was duplicated by electrotypy. The resulting copper electrotypes were reinforced and joined together to form a copper plate which was finally shaped into a printing cylinder used in a sheet-fed Koenig & Bauer – A.G.press into which dry (i.e. not moistened) gummed sheets of paper were fed by hand.

The high-quality printing of artistic postage stamps was regarded as a matter of prestige. Production process was sometimes repeated in part or as a whole so as to ensure that the end product was perfect. Strict economy was not the crucial point.

This is a summary of an account published in #5/1957 of the Czechoslovak bimonthly Filatelie. It was signed by "f See" reporting a guided tour of the postage stamp printing section of the Österreichische Staatsdruckerei Wien.

lithograving - Thanks for bringing up the subject of the techniques used to print Austrian engraved stamps.

However I have to say I misinterpreted the Czech text on the mid-1950s ÖSD sheet-fed Koenig & Bauer – A.G.press saying that "dry (i.e. not moistened) gummed sheets of paper were fed (into it) by hand", which was not true: therefore "by hand" should be deleted.

It was the perforation process, performed on a different machine, where such procedure was involved, on which the text says the following:

"The sheets are fed into the perforation machine by hand and the whole process is fairly time-consuming."

This explains the occasional poor centering of the Austrian stamps of the period.

I do apologize.

This must be the the hand fed machine mentioned by florian in
the previous post.

The Titan comb-perforating machine.

See here https://goscf.com/t/36638

http://www.briefmarken-forum.com/t5...-briefmarken

Is there a relation with the H-shaped combs introduced around 1957 for Austria??

What other recess presses were in use BEFORE the 1973 Goebel [recess + photogravure] reel-fed press???

In 1961 the Vienna Artist series the Giori process was used!

Great stuff! The pantograph is a neat device. That is the point where the enlarged drawing is reduced to postage stamp size.

Here is how it works, on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantograph

First of all that Goebel press was first used by the OeSD
already in 1968.
According to an article I got from Glenn Morgan, written
by T.H. Wilcox in the Autumn of 1969 the first stamp
printed on this 3 colour press was the June 1968 Karl Landsteiner
stamp (Scott 813 ANK 1296) and a reprint of the S10 Building definitive.




There is no mention if it was a Goebel
or whether it was also capable of photogravure but it must have
been since starting in 1968 with Magadalenaberg (Scott 816 ANK 1299) they first began combining
one colour engraving with up to 4 colours photogravure.
I dont' know why the OeSD even bought a 3 colour recess press
since from then on only one colour engraving was used.

Yes Rein how could the Austrian State Printer have printed the
2 colour 1961 Arts series which definitely shows Giori type
of bleeding on the upper and lower frame with the old one colour
Konig & Bauer?

Austria
Scott 664 ANK 1131





Perhaps the OeSD used the presses from the Nationalbank Druckerei
fuer Wertpapiere which printed banknotes to see which direction they will take for
future multicolour stamps.

1/ multicolour all engraved

2/ recess engraving combined with multicolour offset (first one 1958
Walther von der Vogelweide Scott 634)

3/ recess engraving combined with multicolour photogravure,
which they finally decided upon.

Scott 665 ANK 1132

Lithograving,

there was MORE experimenting with Austrian stamps in the 1960-ies!

I would not be surprised if other printers were involved as several series in offset-litho were done by the Rosenbaum Bros!

As to the combination of recess plus photogravure apart from the 1973 onwards definitives - most if not all commemoratives were printed in recess combined with SHEET-FED photogravure which is easily to be established as the direction of paper and the direction of printing (photogravure) are perpendicular! I should check that out for the pre-1973 stamps as well!

groetjes, Rein

I have no idea if the Austrian State Printer made use of other private printers in the sixties besides
the Brüder Rosenbaum Druckerei, Vienna.
But the Brothers Rosenbaum did print the following Austrian stamps in
multicolor offset plus a few more I haven't shown.

Scott 708 600 years Tirol 1963



Scott 727 The Kiss by Klimt 1964



Scott B306 - B113 WIPA 1964



Scott B314 Stamp Day 1964



Originally the WIPA set was supposed to have been a one colour
recess engraving ( Austrian Nationalbank) and multicolour
offset combined but for some reason, probably technical,
there was a change of plans and Brüder Rosenbaum printed them
totally in offset.




As you can see above Michel was given the information
that they were an engraved & offset combination issue.
Rein you are right, catalogues make lots of mistakes
but sometimes they report the errors they were given.

The fact that the engraver Rudolf Toth's name is on the lower right
margin proves that these were supposed to have been at least
partly engraved.




It was the same for the 1964 Stamp Day.
The stamp was printed totally by offset, yet the engravers
name is on the lower right margin.

Lithograving,

the Michel editors often claim that they had the information straight from the Post Office publication and even - in the case of two German stamps - claim the information came from the printers themselves!

http://forum.briefmarken.de/index.p...e-redaktion/

groetjes, Rein

The article below written by T.H. Wilcox in 1969 refers to a new 3 colour recess printing press which was a Goebel
web fed rotary press (3 colour intaglio on one cylinder and 4 colour photogravure) *



Here are the two printings of what Scott calls Austria # 630



The stamp on the left was first issued on 25.10.1957 as part of the
definitive Building serie and was printed by the Austrian
State Printer on their single colour recess Koenig & Bauer
press.

In those days definitives were around for a long time and new printings were needed over the years.
When the Österreichische Staatsdruckerei (OeSD) installed
the new Goebel press in 1968 the 10 Schilling was one of the first
engraved stamps to be printed on it.

The two stamps look very similar except at first glance mainly
due to the deeper green of the initial printing.
But as the article states there are many differences in the engraving
and it is not known if a new plate was engraved by Georg Wimmer.


* I wonder if this was similar to the Goebel BRNST-50
bought by BABN in 1967/68 ?

See here : https://goscf.com/t/36300 br /

Lithograving,

I do not read anything in the article you showed about Goebel!?

The new recess press used for the first time for the 14.06.1968 Landsteiner stamp, may as well be a sheet-fed press with the option for the Giori-process so it can print upto 3 colours with one plate.. But there was NO such stamps since 1968!

Indeed, the 10s has several printings and this new press could have been used for the 10s as well..

Unfortunately I only have some post-1968 copies although with two different types of paper...

Originally in the Berner Briefmarken Zeitung, my copy from the Moniteur du Collectionneur, nr 5, 1e aout 1973 (Luxemburg).

The Goebel-press could print up to 3 colours [recess] plus upto 4 colours photogravure...

Lithograving,

is there a chance you were mixed up with this press?

groetjes, Rein

Rein, first of all, thanks for that article





I'm just going by the article I posted which is from Autumn 1969.
As it only mentions 3 colours recess printing machine,
I suppose I presumed that it also was capable of 4 colour photogravure
similar or the same as the Goebel bought by the Canadian
printer British American Bank Note in late 1967 early 1968.

I don't understand why the OeSD would even buy at that time
a 3 colour recess press when they only ever printed
in one colour recess either singly or combined with
multicolour photogravure ? *


* Except of course Scott 662 - 665

Lithograving,


yes the OeSD only printed one-colour recess [apart from the 1961 Vienna Artists, assuming this series had not been printed by the National Bank!]. Michel Special does mention some 3 stamps printed by the National Bank though.

They - OeSD - did combine the recess with an occasional typography or offset-litho, but from 1963 onwards several stamps with a combined photogravure like the 1963 Olympic Wintergames in Innsbruck. But judging by the direction of printing being perpendicular to the direction of paper these stamps could only have been sheet-fed.