Not Earth Shaking.....but Different.

Hi guys...Ever noticed these Austrian stamps are all printed the same way..Take for instance this Scott #73...The numerals are printed first in black, then the framework is printed over top of it..You would think it would be the other way around.
Robert







Wish now I had NOT started the thread...HAHA

I think it's just some resistance between the two inks. There would be more absorption of the black ink into the white paper, if that makes any sense.

Compare it to the Cancel.

Maybe it is my eyesight... but it is possible that the numerals coincide with the varnish bars on the stamp and may have reacted in some way. The bottom left numeral especially looks as though there is a varnish bar there.

I agree with Jamesw. I have several US precancel strips printed on the Cottrell presses in the eighties, and they show the same thing. Where the original ink is, the overprint ink holds pretty poor!

Peter

"There would be more absorption of the black ink into the white paper"

At the location indicated in the close-up of the stamp there would be very very little white paper as that area is covered in varnish before printing. It is one of four diagonal varnish bars on those stamps.



Just my opinion so it should be checked but I do see what could be several varnish bars on that stamp.

Wert, you sure come up with some interesting observations.

After looking at your example and the ones I have I tend
to agree with James.
The black ink just didn't adhere evenly over the lighter
ink from the first pass of the press.

I don't think it has anything to do with the varnish bars
since my copy here has all the numerals outside of the bars
and they look similar to wert's.

hi Litho, for arguement sake, I really don't agree with jamesw's idea on what has happened myself...Take another closer look at the numeral part of this stamp..Look where the arrows are pointing...The blue is in my opinion definitely printed over top of the numeral...I don't see any other explanation, but if some one has more input, then I will agree.
Robert

Wert, what does your CSI software say as far as the layering
of the ink?

Hi litho...I ran it through my SPM (scanning probe microscopy) data visualization and analysis software and as far as I can see, the RED arrow is the blue ink and the BLUE arrow shows the black numeral 5...As you can see the blue ink is raised above the black ink, to me that means the black was printed first ad the blue frame printed over top later..Just my opinion..




Here is a more extreme look at it.

Why didn't you use the BLUE arrow for the BLUE ink?

Yikes...You got me there Litho...Good one..

Maybe we should try to get forum member Papy24 to weigh in here since
he was as he mentioned previously
a stamp printer, probably the last to use typography for stamps in France.


These Austrian stamps were printed via typography so he probably
would have an expert opinion on which sequence was used back in the 19th century.

I checked out my limited collection, and found a few where the black is obviously covering everything underneath, but there were some where the underlying colors show through. My Scott #71 shows similar traits to the OP, but I tend to think that the black ink just didn't stick correctly in those areas.

Strange Partime..??
I have maybe 10 different ones and all seem to have the framework covering the numeral...weird...

Wert, I don't want to beat a dead horse here (I do love that saying!) but here's an example of a precancel overprint on a Canadian War Tax revenue. You can see quite clearly how the ink of the stamp image resists the overprint image. I really think that's all that's going on with the Austrians.