French Government Printer, Multicoloured Engraved Stamps

This thread concerns only multicolour engraved stamps
printed by the French Government Printer which
has been printing stamps since 1918 under various names.

until 1964: Atelier de Fabrication des Timbres-Poste - Paris;
from 1965 to 1970: IMPRIMERIE DES TIMBRES-POSTE - PARIS;
from 1971 to 1991: IMPRIMERIE DES TIMBRES-POSTE - FRANCE;
after 1992: IMPRIMERIE DES TIMBRES-POSTE ET DES VALEURS FIDUCIARES FRANCE (ITVF).
After March 2006 Phil@poste


I would like to start off with some stamps from the Principality of Monaco. In the late sixties I read in Linn's Weekly about these colourful stamps so I sent off a letter to the Monaco Philatelic Service asking for what was available and placed an order.
They weren't too expensive given that the French franc was around 20c Canadian but keep in mind that first class letter rate (1 ounce) in Canada was still only 5c until 1968.

Monaco Scott 674





Notice the imprints on the small pane's margin.



T.D.6 -1 stands for Taille-Douce 6 colours press 1


26.10.67 is for the date when it was printed

I'm not sure what the number 20964 stands for.
Number of impressions maybe?
Hopefully Papy24 can help out here.

Taille-douce of course is the French term
which can be translated into English to mean engraved or recess or
intaglio printing.


This Chambon press was capable of printing up
to six colours, three direct recess and three indirect (offset)
recess.
The way I understand it 2 die plates were used, first
the light (indirect) inks followed by the darker
(direct) inks.
I don't know if the Chambon presses printed from both plates
continuously on one pass or whether it took two runs
through the presses.
Hopefully Papy24 can clear all this up.

For the Monaco stamp above I see red, dark blue and black
direct solid colours.
Indirect light colours are golden yellow, salmon (flesh) and lemon yellow for the writing
in the horizontal middle selvadge.

Wow, very nice.

Great images....please post more. Thank you.

Hello,




Here is a picture of the press "Chambon" TD6.

The press needs 2 printing plates cylinders. One for the direct intaglio, one for indirect intaglio. The paper band passes successively through the two printing blocks, and in the perforating unit with comb perforation-three sides, and for printing the sheet indications.

The number on the bottom left is the given number to each sheet of paper, then number press and date at right.

It takes 2 dies, one engraved in reverse to direct intaglio, one engraved in place for indirect intaglio.

Lithograving, you are right for the colors.

Ask me if you do not understand my explanation.

YoshiRules2 and graphis thank you for your
kind encouragement.
I'm glad to see some interest in printing on this
board.

Papy24, thank you for the pic of a Chambon TD6.
How many of these presses were in use in the glory
days of French engraved stamps and are any still
used today ?
It looks like they got a lot of use out of the
press in your pic.
I had to laugh when I noticed the red oil can thinking
about someone going around making sure everything is
well lubricated and running smooth without any squeaks.
Was this the press you worked on?

Is there any chance you have a schematic drawing which shows the
whole printing process in detail?

In 1970-1971 there was NOT just a change of name for the printers! They moved from Paris [Boulevard Brune] to Perigueux.....

What happened to the Paris equipment? Was everything transferred to Perigueuex???

Here is another stamp and pane of 10 from the same set as the one above.

Monaco Scott 675

Hello,

Galeoptix, you are right. It is the same name and a new place. Everything was transferred to Perigueux.

Lithograving, there are three presses like that and four presses with a single block intaglio. They are still in use.
I have not worked on these presses but on other machines. However, I know them well enough.

A shematic drawing, but in french.

As I mentioned before this Chambon TD6 was capable
of printing up to six ink colours.

For this stamp issue only 4 were used as far as I can see.

Dark blue and dark brown direct recess ink colours.
Two indirect recess colours, light carmine red (head) and lemon yellow
for the writing in the horizontal middle selvadge.

Excellent information here, and your scans are exemplary as usual, Litho.

Papy24, the photo and schematic really help explain the procedure.

Thanks for your compliment BC as always.
I'm glad that there is some interest in this
"boring" stuff like stamp printing.

We are lucky that we have someone like Papy24
on this site now who actually was involved in the stamp
printing business and who is sharing some of this knowledge
with us.

I hope you don't mind I submit a used stamp

As a youngster I always marveled at this 1958 French Polynesia stamp.



It appears to be three colours recess.

BC I agree its a fine looking stamp and since it is
in 3 colours from 1958 it would have been printed
by the Atelier de Fabrication des Timbres-Poste - Paris
on a T.D.3 Chambon press since the T.D.6 didn't
come in use until 1960.

Thanks for showing it. I also remember that some stamps
really thrilled me when I was just a kid
starting to collect.
Funny though I think at that time I was more
impressed by the colourful ones more than anything else.

Same as with movies. I remember seeing Buffalo Bill starring
Joel McCrea way back 50+++ years ago as part of a triple feature
at the old Biltmore Theatre on Yonge St in Toronto and thought it
was the best movie ever.
Saw it again recently and said to myself, wow they don't make
movies like that any more. Thank goodness.

Litho I remember in the 60's watching Buffalo Bill for the first time with my younger brother on black & white TV.

Ironically a few years ago his character was in the plot of Murdoch Mysteries, the CBC drama that takes place in the 1890's - one of my favourite shows.

Meanwhile, here is another wonderful French Polynesia Stamp from the same set.