Recess Engraving Intaglio Printing

Some Recess Engraving Intaglio Printing Presses:

1) Sheet-Fed Flat Plate Press Wet Printing (flat printing plates used on cut wet sheets of paper which were gummed after printing) Example: Canada 111 with plates 1 and 2
2) Sheet-Fed Flat Plate Press Dry Printing (flat printing plates used on cut dry sheets of paper which were gummed before printing) Example: Canada 169a with plate 3

3) Sheet-Fed Rotary Plate Press Wet Printing (rotary bent printing plates used on cut wet sheets of paper which were gummed after printing) Example: Canada 111 with plates 3 and 4
4) Sheet-Fed Rotary Plate Press Dry Printing (rotary bent printing plates used on cut dry sheets of paper which were gummed before printing) Example: Canada 109 with all plate numbers

5) Web-Fed Rotary Plate Press Wet Printing (rotary bent printing plates used on wet uncut rolls of paper which were gummed after printing) Example: Canada 169 with plates 1 and 2, Canada 195 with plates 1 through 6
6) Web-Fed Rotary Plate Press Dry Printing (rotary bent printing plates used on dry uncut rolls of paper which were gummed before printing) Example: Canada 195d with plates 1 through 3

The old Hoe four plate flat plate printing press was used to make many sheet-fed wet printed U.S. flat plate stamps up until around 1939. Then this same old press was used to dry print these issues: 832c, 1041, 1053, J78, QE1a, QE2a, QE3a while 1041B was sheet-fed rotary press dry printed on a new experimental press.

I remember having come across an article in a back number of FILATELIE saying that in the 1950s the BEP had ordered from Lausanne, Switzerland, and used two sheet-fed flat-bed Giori presses for printing multicoloured engraved postage stamps.

Were the details in this information correct or not?

Yes, you are correct. See the following link on here: https://goscf.com/t/48496

That is very interesting Florian.
Anything I've ever read about the BEP Giori presses
mentions them being rotary not flat bed.
Then again I was wrong in believing they were
all web fed.

Well this one below is a Giori sheet fed rotary press
used by the BEP.
I borrowed this from an article in American Philatelist
February 2015 issue, page 33.

jogil and lithograving - Thank you for all these details. Much appreciated. I have not yet traced the above-mentioned FILATELIE article dating back from the late 1950s or the early 1960s that I noted in passing a couple of months ago.

What is of interest is the fact that the Giori presses used by B.E.P. managed to prevent different inks seeping into one another (there had been some minor problems, such as U.S. #C58 / #C63 , see https://goscf.com/t/34270#290267 , the modification having been issued to make printing on the Giori Press easier) to such an extent as it sometimes happened with the French Chambon TD-3 presses (see France 1973 Le Clos-Lucé a Amboise issue https://goscf.com/t/40873&whichpage=3#348109 and on Anthony UK's Homepage, p. 6 - see his Profile here. And here is the link kindly provided in the meantime by Anthony: https://www.flickr.com/photos/smout...24784037858/ ).

Has any specialist in post-1955 U.S. issues or student of Giori printings spotted significant differences between U.S. Giori-printed stamps similar to the above French Chambon-TD-3-printed varieties?

I would be most grateful for any such varieties reported here.

As for their facture, some of those Giori stamps were real beauties as well as those printed on the Chambon TD-3 presses. I love them.

Florian, You wrote: "I have not yet traced the article dating back from the late 1950s or the early 1960s that I noted in passing a couple of months ago." Any chance of repeating the article title / reference, etc. as I cannot readily find your earlier posting where you make your request. There is a (small?) chance that I may have the article. GLENN

65170 - Glenn, thank you very much for your kind offer of help. I was referring to this post of mine: https://goscf.com/t/48481#419009 .

It was a short article or sort of short news item in Czech and the trouble is that I do not remember its title, so indexes to the respective volumes have proved of no help. I was searching something else when I came across it, so I forgot to make a note of it but the facts seemed simple enough to remember.

Here is a summary of what I have learnt from various sources on intaglio presses using the "dry" process for printing postage stamps at the BEP:

Huck-Cottrell Presses
a group of high speed, intaglio, web-fed presses first used to print the bi-color International Red Cross stamp of 1952 ( Scott 1016). From 1956 until the late 1980s, Cottrell Presses were the mainstay of postage stamp printing at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. These presses were designed by the Huck Corporation and built by the Cottrell Co. (thus the name). Most stamps of the Liberty, Prominent Americans, Americana, Transportation, and Great Americans series, as well as numerous commemoratives, were produced on these presses. The BEP owned five of these presses, officially designated as presses 801, 802, 803, 804, and 805. These single-color intaglio presses (4 of them at the BEP) were similar to a Stickney press, but faster. The method of printing, with two plates fastened together to form the printing cylinder, created joint lines on the stamps, with a line and plate number every 24 stamps. The last Huck-Cottrell presses were decommissioned in 1985. Progressively from 1955 the Huck-Cottrell presses — which allowed the BEP to improve amongst other things the crispness of images by moving from "wet" to "dry printing" — became the workhorses for the production of commemorative stamps of one color. The new process required a thicker, stiffer paper, special types of inks and greater pressure to force the paper into the recessed plates. The "dry" printings show whiter paper and a higher sheen on the surface, feel thicker and stiffer and the designs stand out more clearly than on the "wet" printings. The first commemorative stamps so produced were the 1954 Lewis and Clark Expedition Issue (Scott 1063) and the 1956 Wheatland Issue (Scott 1081). All postage stamps have been printed by the "dry" process since the late 1950s.

Giori Presses
sheet-fed, single-station three-colour, intaglio, rotary presses that were first used to print the American Flag stamp of 1957 (Scott 1094). Acquired in 1955, the new machine could produce stamps in two or three different colors, all in one pass. Different rollers each applied a different color. A second and improved Giori press was brought into use in 1959. These presses are best known for the bright, multicolored commemorative postage stamps of the late 1950s through the 1970s.

(Giori) "B" Press
webfed, single-station three-color, intaglio press used exclusively to print coils and booklet panes from seamless cylindrical sleeves. Used at the BEP from 1973-1993.

(Goebel) "C" Press
webfed, single-station three-color, intaglio press used exclusively to print coils and booklet panes from seamless cylindrical sleeves. Used at the BEP from 1982 to 1996.

Sources:
http://www.philatino.com/pages/Defi...20Terms.html
http://alphabetilately.org/PNC-2.html
The Scott Specialized Catalog (Edition 2009)
https://www.mysticstamp.com/Listing/United-States/
http://stamps.org/userfiles/file/AP...ary_2015.pdf : Cataloguing U.S. Commemoratives: An Overview of Philately in the 1950s by Charles M. Posner


Any corrections, additions, etc. are welcome.