Finland, 1901, Paper And Print Process?

These are Scott #64-8, Yvert #49-53, and Michel also #49-53. And I'm quite confused. Can anyone help?

Scott and Yvert say they're lithographed. Michel says they're engraved.

Scott says the entire series is on chalky paper. Michel says only the 5 Pen and 10 Pen are chalky. Yvert says nothing about paper.

(NB—My Scott Classics is 2013; my Yvert is 1955; my Michel for north and west Europe is 2001-2)

Actually, I've misread the abbreviation in Michel. All three catalogs say these stamps are lithographed. Still, the question about the paper remains. Chalky or not?

You should really be using Facit for Scandinavia, none of the others will be as good. There were multiple issues in 1901 of the first penni/mark issues in the Russian design.
In January they issued a few (200,000) emergency 5p printed using Finnish plates that didn't meet the Russian standards. They had been printed the month before (December 1900), were comb perfed 14¼x14¾, printed by letter press and not on chalky paper.
Also in January they released stamps temporarily printed using lithography, as they could meet a better standard with litho. These were on chalky paper and consisted of the 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 1m denominations, perfed 14¼x14¾. They went to a private printer for the 10m issue who gave acceptable quality but the plate consisted of single, loose cliches. These were also on chalky paper.
By September plates had been received from Berlin and for the next few years all values were printed using those plates, though later in the issue the 10p, 20p and 10m had new plates made. They don't call out paper type, so the assumption is they are not on chalky paper. During this time there were two perforations used, the old 14¼x14¾ and a new comb at 14¼x14. The 10m were perfed 13¼.
Facit shows the design differences between each printing with two types of the 2p, three of the 5p (emergency, lithograph, letter press), three of the 10p (early and late letter press used German then Helsinki plates), three of the 20p (also German and Helsinki), two of the 1m and finally the two 10m. The Helsinki plates weren't put into use until 1908 and 1909. The second plate on the 10m wasn't put into use until 1915 and was perf 14¼.

in a display of appalling ignorance here, could you tell me what the L' and I' mean? Sorry if this is very basic but I have never come across this notation before

TIA, Crispin

It's the way non-ASCII characters are transcribed. In this case it's the characters for 1/4 or 3/4. I discovered the same a few years ago with Cyrillic characters, and it all comes out as garbage. I don't think there is a way around it?

oh thanks! I never thought of that. I've come across the cyrillic script issue before, but it didn't occur to me that this was the same thing

Not that it should be necessary after reading billsey's post, but I'll put in a second recommendation for Facit materials.

All of them that I have come across are loaded with information, navigable for English speakers, and (so far) available used at low prices.

Thank you, billsey! Answers my question and then some. Clarifies what I'm reading in Michel, though convinces me as well that I need a copy of Facit.

Another question: Would there be any point in comparing these Finnish stamps to their Russian analogs?

You could checkout this catalog also:

Look Under: Grand Duchy Finnish 1809-1917

http://skandinav.eu/index.htm

And thank you, perf12. Great site. I don't read Russian, but the pictures are wonderful and captions in English as well. Helps greatly to identify the different series.

I don't think so. As you can see the bulk of the differences between printings are going to be things specific to the challenge of printing in Finland. IIRC none of the Russian issues were printed in Finland. :)
Facit lists Russian stamps used in Finland for the 1899-1918 period, including semi-postals and exchange stamps, but I understand them to mean they were created in Russia and shipped to Finland for distribution to the POs. I believe these are typically collected with identifying Finnish cancels.