Raised Lettering On A Stamp - 101

Hi
just thought I would bring up a subject that many stamp collectors ignore or don't realize exists...RAISED LETTERING ON STAMPS.

The definition of raised lettering is as follows...
"Raised lettering is done through a special technique used by off-set printers. They apply a Thermographic powder to wet ink on a stamp sheet and they react to each other causing the bubble effect"

While I was in high school in printing class, I did this many times on business cards, wedding cards, etc...The technique is exactly the same for stamps.

Immediately after the stamp sheet has been printed and before it lands on the previous sheet a nozzle spray a very fine dark power on the printed area...It reacts immediately to the chemical and bubbles up to form raised lettering.

You can feel the deference and see it also..One easy way to tell if it have been raised is to look for small pot holes on a letter which was a bubble that burst and became concave.

Below is a random stamp I used to show the raised letter effect. look at this Newfoundland Scott 156..



Below is a close up of the same stamp...The left brown line is the exact same colour as the left red arrow is pointing to..The difference in colour is caused by the powder reacting to wet ink.

The 5 brown arrows in the middle shows the highlights of he raised lettering (tops of the lettering)..The far right red arrow shows again the original colour printed as shown by the picture below.



Now having said that, here is a shocker for you.. My printing experience tells me that this stamp and other were sent trough the printing press twice...The lettering to be raised was printed first to get the raised lettering affect...Then ran trough the presses again to finish the rest of the stamp...The reason I know this to be true is it is impossible (IMPOSSIBLE) to achieve an exacting fine spray to get this wanted affect on such tiny areas...It looks like two different colours on this stamp, BUT they are exactly the same, just one is chemically affected.

Hope it sheds a bit of light on a print effect that has been lost over time

Robert

Robert,

Excellent discourse! How about submitting this as an article to the Canadian Philatelist or BNA Topics? I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate the information.

Peter

You could have fooled me. I thought this was an ordinary, engraved stamp where the paper was pushed into the recessed areas to pick up the ink, thus giving it a raised effect.

The equipment to do this appears to be quite rare in this time period, would they have purchased and used such 'bleeding edge' materials and equipment when printing stamps?
http://thermographic-equipment.com/...ic-printing/
Don

Don..I was trained on old to new equipment
HEIDELBERG PRESS..This press used the powdered spray for raised lettering.



LINOTYPE MACHINE



AND FINALLY THE A.B.DICK 360 PRESS



And yes I have kept old cards from the 1800's from my printing class that had raised lettering.

Robert

Robert, I would be REALLY surprised if that Newfoundland stamp was sent through the press twice. It is listed as a single color dark blue in Scott/Unitrade.

If there were two passes, then there is bound to be easily distinguishable shifting on different stamps.

I agree with Bookbndrbob regarding engraved stamps.

Ok, the printing company was Thomas De La Rue & Company

In 1855, the British Post Office awarded a contract for the firm to print postage stamps, using the relief printing process...So the process has been around for many, many years.

The company printed stamps for Newfoundland (more than 50 postage stamp issues), and several countries, namely Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Swaziland, Trinidad, the United States.

Now on the older Platinum Presses the whole stamp was run through to create a proof as to allow the proof reader (that is what they called a person to read, except or deny stamp production)...The whole stamp process is locked in the top part of a Platinum Press and the sheets were fed into the lower part of the press...it is very EASY to remove the rest of the stamp except the word "NEWFOUNDLAND because of lockable wedges..That would leave the single word in exact alignment for a second run for Thermographic powder application.

Hey guys, just trying to use common sense using my old printer skills...And if anyone out there knows how a printer/printer process can apply Thermographic powder to such a small area that NEWFOUNDLAND occupies on a stamp without affecting the ink on the rest of the stamp, I will apologize and end this post..

Thanks for any input guys.

Robert

Interesting.
Is there any documentation from post office records on how they did this?

txstamp..Don't have the slightest clue where to begin to get information archives from the post office.

Robert

Print is naturally raised above the paper surface through the intaglio printing process. The most likely reason for a change in color in a printed area is that the ink has oxidized in that place.

Wert - Canada Post is not a source for much in the way of stamp production technical information. You need to go to the National Archives - where you can see such things as proofs and printing contracts / specs, or the manufacturers who would surely have such records. As for the latter though I doubt very much they have an interest in answering philatelic questions.

Thermography has not been used for any stamp issued in Canada or British North America. It simply is not a practical or suitable process for any security printing.

The stamp in question in this discussion is an intaglio printing from steel plates.

GJP

Thermography has been used for the first time - as far as postage stamps goes - for as Turkish stamp in the 1960-ies!

The black lettering has thermography!

Galeoptix, most assuredly, the black in the Rural Electrification stamp is not engraved. You apparently have never seen thermograving?

And I believe the process is thermograving or thermo gravure, not thermography. Thermography is a heat picture; look it up.

While rounded edges is a characteristic of thermograving, it is also a feature of engraving plates made by chemical etching.

This is from a model railroad parts details fret made of brass. This has been chemically etched, as that is the best cheapest method for smaller quantity runs in that hobby. The brass surface has been polished/cleaned where the inside of the cuts are still oxidized. Hand or machine engraving would not produce this. Note the rounded cutting. So an engraving plate could easily create printing with rounded edges.

Thermograving is as wert noted, a powder process. The granules are spread out by the sprayer and expand on contact with the ink, they just don't sit on top of the printed ink. The surface created is never perfectly flat if seen under magnification and is typically mottled slightly, often with imperfect edges.